I had expected something between a mediocre to average entertainment experience from this movie. Even so, it turned out to be a huge disappointment.
Starting with the narration in the beginning of the movie - as many point out, it's style is wholly inappropriate. The voice and intonation lacks gravity and seriousness, and makes you wonder whether this is a children's' movie, or perhaps a cheap nature documentary.
The child directing is poor (and/or the child casting). Several of these scenes have been edited to try to hide acting mistakes, and then dubbed, but mismatching dialog and mouth movements can clearly be discerned. Example: the scene where the two boys hold and talk about a bird.
After that, it quickly becomes obvious that two complex novels have been squeezed into a single movie. Although it's full of well-known actors, they don't get many lines, and there is no character development. No inner motivations or inner conflicts seem to exist and there's no evolution of any characters' personality and beliefs over time - although there is plenty of that in the books. Those deeper motivations are part of what makes these novels interesting, as a picture of beliefs and dogmas in Swedish nobility, medieval church, and the conflicting peoples and orders present in the holy land in this period! Instead, the characters appear rather simple-minded, and longer dialog has been substituted with cheap gestures and editing that tries to fit in too much story points into too few minutes. Example: The wooden sword that Arn just happens to hold in his hand for a second as his mother is submitted to the monastery (so simplistic, and totally out of line with his character's development in the book). Example: Arn steps in, on "impulse" and wholly unexplained, for his father at the judicial conflict.
Towards the second half of the movie I was at least hoping for well-done battles in the holy land. This turned out to be almost laughable however. Since the movie makers were unable to make any overview takes on the battle the director tries to compensate with closeups of Arn and Saladin, trying to give the impression that they're looking at each other - trying to make it a profound personal connection between foes that grudgingly respect each other. But since the conclusion that there are only a dozen or two soldier extras around them, and an overview shot would have revealed the pathetic size of the battle scene, it just ruins the scene more: If you can't make a scene feel naturally epic, don't try to fake it with a cliché! Given the extraordinary "squeeze" of story material into the 2+ hours of the movie, it's a total mystery that the movie makers insert irrelevant subplots such as the prestige conflict between Arn and a fellow officer in the Templar order. As it is portrayed, that conflict adds nothing to character depth and has no impact on the plot whatsoever.
Oh I almost forgot the score. There's constant music throughout the movie. It's never turned off. It's not *bad*, but it's not overly good either. And did I mention it's never turned off? It made me think of reality-TV-shows where they play dramatic music throughout the whole episode in an attempt to infuse drama where there is precious little of it. But since this movie has - at least on paper - much more substance than that, it ends up being quite distracting and it indicates the level of confidence the director and producer had in their dramatic capability.
It all boils down to that this is a strong story that can almost tell itself, if the movie makers would have just let it do so. But instead they needlessly overreach in style, substance and amount of plot points, and I left the theater feeling two things I haven't experienced after a movie in years: Palpable relief it was over, and wanting my money back.
Starting with the narration in the beginning of the movie - as many point out, it's style is wholly inappropriate. The voice and intonation lacks gravity and seriousness, and makes you wonder whether this is a children's' movie, or perhaps a cheap nature documentary.
The child directing is poor (and/or the child casting). Several of these scenes have been edited to try to hide acting mistakes, and then dubbed, but mismatching dialog and mouth movements can clearly be discerned. Example: the scene where the two boys hold and talk about a bird.
After that, it quickly becomes obvious that two complex novels have been squeezed into a single movie. Although it's full of well-known actors, they don't get many lines, and there is no character development. No inner motivations or inner conflicts seem to exist and there's no evolution of any characters' personality and beliefs over time - although there is plenty of that in the books. Those deeper motivations are part of what makes these novels interesting, as a picture of beliefs and dogmas in Swedish nobility, medieval church, and the conflicting peoples and orders present in the holy land in this period! Instead, the characters appear rather simple-minded, and longer dialog has been substituted with cheap gestures and editing that tries to fit in too much story points into too few minutes. Example: The wooden sword that Arn just happens to hold in his hand for a second as his mother is submitted to the monastery (so simplistic, and totally out of line with his character's development in the book). Example: Arn steps in, on "impulse" and wholly unexplained, for his father at the judicial conflict.
Towards the second half of the movie I was at least hoping for well-done battles in the holy land. This turned out to be almost laughable however. Since the movie makers were unable to make any overview takes on the battle the director tries to compensate with closeups of Arn and Saladin, trying to give the impression that they're looking at each other - trying to make it a profound personal connection between foes that grudgingly respect each other. But since the conclusion that there are only a dozen or two soldier extras around them, and an overview shot would have revealed the pathetic size of the battle scene, it just ruins the scene more: If you can't make a scene feel naturally epic, don't try to fake it with a cliché! Given the extraordinary "squeeze" of story material into the 2+ hours of the movie, it's a total mystery that the movie makers insert irrelevant subplots such as the prestige conflict between Arn and a fellow officer in the Templar order. As it is portrayed, that conflict adds nothing to character depth and has no impact on the plot whatsoever.
Oh I almost forgot the score. There's constant music throughout the movie. It's never turned off. It's not *bad*, but it's not overly good either. And did I mention it's never turned off? It made me think of reality-TV-shows where they play dramatic music throughout the whole episode in an attempt to infuse drama where there is precious little of it. But since this movie has - at least on paper - much more substance than that, it ends up being quite distracting and it indicates the level of confidence the director and producer had in their dramatic capability.
It all boils down to that this is a strong story that can almost tell itself, if the movie makers would have just let it do so. But instead they needlessly overreach in style, substance and amount of plot points, and I left the theater feeling two things I haven't experienced after a movie in years: Palpable relief it was over, and wanting my money back.