I enjoyed this movie because of the attention to detail that the writer William Monahan and Director Ridley Scott brought to this movie. However, this attention to detail at times slowed the movie down to a painful crawl and it seemed like a 3 hour long movie even though its only 2 hours long. However, since it's an epic it is a worthy effort by Mr. Scott and his cast did a workman like job in delivering the story.

This movie deals with the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslim army of Saladin around 1188 A.D. The movie starts in France where a blacksmith named Balian, played by Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) was morning the death of his wife who committed suicide. Because she committed suicide the local priest reminds Balian that she won't go to heaven. Baron Godfrey, played by Liam Neeson (Phantom Menace,) meets Balian and tells him that is his dad and offers to take him to Jerusalem to be groomed to be his replacement. Balian declines the offer, but when he kills the priest of his village for remarks about his dead wife, Balian joins Godfrey. However, Balian is hunted down by the villagers and he along with Godfrey and some of his men are forced to fight to defend Balian. During the fight Godfrey is mortally wounded and dies before getting Balain to Jerusalem. Before he dies Godfrey Knights Balian and he is now the owner of the Godfrey's land east of Jerusalem. Jumping to the climatic scene, Balian is left to defend Jerusalem after the Army led by Guy is wiped out by the Muslim army in the desert.

The acting was ok, nobody stood out yet nobody did a bad job. The one character I enjoyed the most was Tiberius, played by Jeremy Irons (Being Julia.) His character was by far the toughest of the good guys and he was smart, albeit a little bit of a coward in the end. I am not quite sure if I can ever accept Orlando Bloom as a action hero. He was perfect for the Lord of the Rings movie as well as Pirates, yet in those he had a strong ensemble cast. I just don't know if he is the kind of actor that can carry a action movie.

I liked what Ridley Scott did with the movie. However, it was too long at times. The opening act where we get Balian to Jerusalem was way to long. I liked that he showed how dangerous the travel was across the Medaterranian but adding everything together in the first act, just too long. His battle scenes were not original or creative, but not every movie has to bring something new to the genra. So what if the scenes were copies of Lord of the Rings, until that movie we hadn't seen anything on such a grand scale, let's enjoy it a little while. Writer William Moynahan did a great job of adding detail to the script, some of it being based on factual information, I am amazed that this is his first writing effort on the big screen.

The one thing that made me really upset was the music. Epic movies need their own original music, but to borrow music from other movies takes away from the movie. On my own I heard music from the movie "The 13th Warrior", by Jerry Goldsmith, and I heard somebody say that he heard music from the "Gladiator" in this. If you are going to spend money to make an epic, spend money on making the music right too.

While you might need to bring a pillow to watch the movie, I still say it is worth watching in a movie theatre. The attention to detail that was brought to the movie, complimented by the acting makes for an enjoyable movie.

Brian - the Naked Gun