Robin Hood (2010) movie review

Since I’m a sap for anything medieval, I knew I would probably enjoy Ridley Scott’s, Robin Hood, even if his movies are generally too violent for my taste.  I have to say that I liked the movie more than I thought I would.  He refrained from his usual slo-mo blood spray as the hero kills another man (or dies himself), for which I was grateful.  In summary, the movie follows Robin from France, where he was in King Richard’s army on the way home from the Holy Land, to England, where he falls into an impersonation of the dead heir to the Locksley lands.   To be fair, Robin did impersonate the poor dead Sir Locksley initially, but he approached the dead man’s family on the up-and-up.  Meanwhile, John, now King John as Richard died in a final siege in France on Read more…

Kingdom of Heaven (movie review)

Since any movie with swords garners my immediate attention, Kingdom of Heaven was on the top of my list to see when it came out a few years ago.  Starring Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, and Liam Neeson, and directed by Ridley Scott, what could go wrong? Confession:  I love this movie.  That doesn’t mean it deserves five stars, because it doesn’t.  Maybe 4 on a good day, but I still love it.  I love the character of Balian (played by Bloom), I’ll watch Jeremy Irons in anything, even slumming in Eragon, and all the medieval crusade material makes my mouth water. That said, the history is terrible, and for the purposes of this blog, that’s what I’m going to talk about. First, the good:  The Kingdom of Jerusalem did have a King Baldwin who gained the throne as Read more…