Kingdom of the Idiots

Advantages: Plenty of bang for your buck.
Disadvantages: It's appalling portrayal of Arabs.

...electronica with reversed backing percussion and parping horns. The bombing is accompanied by rising brass and Saudi Arabia is illustrated with electronic Arabic rhythms. The home lives of the Saudis and their prayers are underlined by echoing, jangling guitars, while a thread of unsettling percussion underlies the entire movie. There are also passages of electronic backing and echoing, loose, twangy guitars. It?s an effective score that underlines the action in the movie without smothering it. ?The Kingdom? is a misinformed action movie that seizes on a Middle America?s current fear of the Middle East to push the previous incumbent of the White House?s questionable foreign policy. It is too black and white in its depiction of Arab-American relations and is borderline racist in the way it portrays the Saudi people. I suspect it will appeal to...

afy9mab 05.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Kingdom (DVD)

Kingdom of Heaven

Advantages: Brilliantly shot with lavish sets and costumes and exciting action sequences
Disadvantages: Feels a little disjointed, Orlando Bloom doesnt quite work as the lead

...Often tagged 'Gladiator 2', Kingdom of Heaven is Ridley Scott's take on The Crusades during the 12th century, and fans of Gladiator should know what to expect; Elaborate sets and constumes; dynamic shots of armoured men in frenzied battle; a fearless yet tormented hero rising from the bottom to change the course of history. Balian (Orlando Bloom) a bereaved blacksmith, is approached by his previously unknown father, a crusading Lord named Sir Godfrey (Liam Neeson), and joins his father to fight the crusades, but his father and his men are ambused and killed en route and Balion ends up taking up his fathers office in Jerusalem, a Crusader stronghold in the Holy Land. There he becomes embroiled in a political struggle between rivalling orders of Christian knights, and after the tensions spill out into war and defeat at the hands of Saladin...

Burning_Darkness 12.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Kingdom Of Heaven (DVD)

Kingdom of Purgatory

Advantages: Good cinematography and set design
Disadvantages: Orlando Bloom, One-dimensional characters, Frequently tedious

...the throne. The Jerusalem that Balian has arrived in is more than just a city: at this time is a Christian kingdom captured during the first Crusade and held/ occupied (depending on your perspective) by European soldiers seeking wealth and glory as much as for religious reasons. The kingdom is divided between Baldwin's party, led by Tiberius (Jeremy Irons), who have brokered an uneasy peace with Saracen leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud); and the war mongering Knights Templar (who I'm sure you will remember from "The Da Vinci Code") led by Guy, who wish to break the peace. The Templars know that the death of Baldwin is imminent, and that they merely have to bide their time until Guy can claim the throne to get their nefarious ends?with only Balian to stand in their way. There is no doubt that "Kingdom of Heaven" looks fantastic. The sweeping...

Collingwood21 04.12.2007 · Read review
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Review of Kingdom Of Heaven (DVD)

The Kingdom - Jack Bauer Could Have Sorted This One Out In 24 HRS

Advantages: Very good action scenes
Disadvantages: Would have like more characterisation

...The Kingdom (2007) I have had this film sat on my shelf now for a while and had not got around to watching it. As the pickings on the tv were a bit slim, I decided to give it a go. Basic Plot The story is centred around a terrible terrorist attack that takes place at the beginning of the film, in an American compound which is located in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - (hence the title). With the presence of American investigators being likely to further inflame an already volatile situation, America is told not to send any personnel; that Saudi Arabian police are quite capable of finding the people behind the attack. Not happy with this response, FBI agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) blackmails an official representing Saudi Arabia in America and gains permission to have five days on Saudi soil to be satisfied that a proper...

LAURALILIA 11.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Kingdom (DVD)

My kingdom

Advantages: see review
Disadvantages: see review

...****MySims: Kingdom (DS)**** I really liked mysims when it came out so when this was published i had to buy it!!! The main task in the game is to help king Roland (well the major Ellen ) fix the kingdom as some mysterious person is making things disappear and it is no longer the fab town that it once was. You have to help the other sims and as you do they give you things to help you find out who is destroying the place and as the game progresses more areas and tasks open up. Mini games There are quite a lot of these in this game and they include playing tennis,fishing,selling fruit and catching ghosts.When you play them it starts off easy and as you complete the levels it gets harder.A lot of these test your reaction time which i think is good as you want to play again to beat your previous score. One of the mini tasks is...

katie22008m 01.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of MySims Kingdom (Nintendo DS)

Kingdom of Heaven- or Hell?

Advantages: Convincing performances, great battle scenes
Disadvantages: A Bit Long

...Kingdom of Heaven is the latest epic from Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien) and stars Orlando Bloom. There are also appearances from a number of established actors such as Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons. Kingdom of Heaven is based between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades, where Jerusalem is currently held by the Christians. There is currently a kind of peace (in that there is not an open war) in Jerusalem and Christians, Moslems and Jews all co-exist fairly well. This is the time just before King Richard (the Lionheart) set of on his Crusade. THE STORY: Set in 1186, the story centres around Balian (Bloom), a young French blacksmith mourning the recent death of his wife who committed suicide after their baby died. As a result of this the local priest cheerfully assures Balian that his wife will be at that very moment burning in...

karenes 09.05.2005 · Read review
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Review of Kingdom Of Heaven (DVD)

Kingdom of Conscious

Advantages: Stunning scenery and Interesting Story
Disadvantages: Some bad acting

...begins with two guys burying a woman, a suicide, under a cross by the street. A group of crusaders on their way to the village pass them by, and on their arrival meet Balian. Balian is the village blacksmith and has just lost his wife (the suicide) and child. However that is not all. It turns out that one of the Crusaders is Godfrey of Ibelin, the father Balian has never met. He wants Balian to come with him to Jerusalemm where Balian can benefit from Godfrey's respect there and live a better life. At first Balian rejects the offer but later on, when the local priest tells him that he will join his wife in eternal damnation (hell) if he does not go, he murders the priest and joins his father. And so his pilgrimage of redemption begins... On their way to Jerusalem, the crusaders (together with Balian) meet some officers who want to...

jeffe 02.06.2005 · Read review
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Review of Kingdom of Heaven

Where there's a Will

Advantages: Entertaining, informative, a fun read
Disadvantages: Author sometimes appears too good to be true

...Having recently returned from the idyllic Solomon Islands, Will Randall is having terrible time teaching in an inner-city comprehensive. During a class visit to an art gallery a chance encounter with an eccentric Dutchwoman presents an opportunity to escape. The woman is Maria-Helena von Würfelwerfer and Randall agrees to be her chaperone as she travels to India to join her elderly Maharaja lover. Once Maria-Helena is safely delivered, Will finds himself in the unusual position of having nowhere in particular to go and nothing in particular to do - until he is charmed by the children of an ashram for orphans and agrees to become their English teacher. When pressure mounts from local developers the school faces the threat of closure and Randall and the other volunteers come up with a plan to raise the money required to save it...

fizzytom 27.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Indian Summer - Will Randall

A murky kingdom at that!

Advantages: illustrations are OK
Disadvantages: rambling story, badly written

...times I had to re-read pages to my daughter because I thought we must have missed something, but invariably we had not. The story just seemed to meander and lose its way. Griselda appeared likely to be a central character to the story but she disappeared in the second chapter and we did not meet her again until the end at which point no mention was made of the three boys. I felt that too much was introduced into the story - so much so that we just couldn't keep up with it all. You did not get to know the characters either. There were too many and they were hardly described at all. It was particularly difficult to work out why they did certain things because often there did not seem to be any apparent reason. The settings did fare better though and there are some wonderful descriptions of the Kingdom of the Deep. I will admit that many...

kingfisher111 08.04.2009 · Read review
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Review of Kingdom of the Deep - Frank Hinks

Where Theres A Will There's A Grace

Advantages: Funny show.
Disadvantages: Very stereotypical.

...of the stars in the UK and the USA, and that is only a handful of the famous celebs that featured in Will & Grace. Some of the best episodes include the likes of Kevin Bacon playing himself, Jack is stalking him or something, and Will intervenes but ends up doing that Footloose dance thing at the end. Brilliant! Matt Damon's episode is also great, he plays a 'straight' choir boy, who's pretending to be gay. He and Jack have a sing off and end up fighting. Jack has always had an obsession with Cher, so who did they hire to sit in a restaurant in one episode, you got it Cher, this is really funny episode as Jack doesn't believe it's Cher because she can't sing as well as him. Grace's main love interests played by Woody Harrelson and Harry Connick Jnr are brilliant, especially the latter. They really managed to fit in with the show...

DixieChick10 22.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Will & Grace