After the wow of the ROTK epic big battles I had my appetite filled for quite a while.
But recently I feel ready to watch another recent epic battle flick. But I don’t want to waste my time on garbage.
Out of the following (did I miss any?) what are films worthy of viewing this weekend:
King Arthur
Troy
Alexander
Kindom of Heaven
I’ve seen King Arthur and Troy.
I hope somebody can recomend one of the other two.
I liked Troy. Not least because the actress playing Briseis is gorgeous, admittedly, but I also thought it was a reasonable go at a no-magic variant of the story. Do not, under any circumstances, see this one if you’re finicky about the Illiad/Odyssey. (If you like the Aeneid it’s just about ok, as the festival scenes are a very obvious homage to the passages on a similar topic).
King Arthur was… amusing. If you like laughing at the movie. Notable for managing to make Keira Knightley look unattractive, which I would previously have called impossible. Also has crossbows in the twilight of the Roman Empire and Pelagius about 100 years out of date. It is a silly film, intentionally or not.
Kingdom of Heaven is a well-intentioned slog for the first two hours, but the final siege of Jerusalem is incredibly impressive–well-staged, exciting and epic in scale (without the excessive, too-obvious CGI). Not a particularly good movie, but the last half-hour is rousingly crafted.
Then again, a lot of that impression was from seeing it on the big screen; if you plan on renting the video, the impact will inevitably be diminished.
I saw Kingdom of Heaven. I’d personally say that the battles were the best part of the film. The film itself was good, but not great. I think part of it was that I spent half the film wondering how many of the people in real life actually acted the way they did in the movie. The good guys just seemed so…tolerant, and that never struck me as being a big thing in either the middle ages or the crusades.