Probably Nuri Bilge Ceylan's movie with the most dialog. If you don't mind spending three and a half hours sitting, you will watch it with interest. The acting is incredibly successful. Deniz Cellioglu's acting as Samet is incredible. Merve Dizdar had already proven her success by winning the best actress award at the Cannes film festival for her acting in this movie. Centering on a handful of teachers in a snow-covered village in Anatolia, we watch an extraordinary story with a great script. Although the prolonged dialogues sometimes slow down the pace, I think you will enjoy the film in general. Especially the naturalness of the small actors in the student roles is magnificent. During Nuray and Samet's long conversation at the dinner table, there are inconsistencies in terms of continuity in the positions of the actors at different camera angles. Ceylan is already a master photographer. He reflected this mastery in his movie. I found his use of the camera very successful, especially in tight spaces. Some of the sentences interspersed between the dialogues still impress me. It will be very surprising if this movie is not among the best foreign film nominees for the Oscars. It was one of the two movies I saw this year that I can say I liked very much. I hope the majority feel the same way.

This review is for the Directors Cut. Any theatrical release is almost half the runtime, but suffers incredibly due to cut content taking entire key plot points and whole characters away.

I'm fairly mixed on how I feel about this film.
The casting in this movie is incredible, for all but 2 characters. Amazing actors such as Jeremy Irons and even Liam Neeson completely become their role, and make you look forward to every scene they inhabit. The two casting choices that pull the movie down? The protagonist and antagonist.
If Liam Neeson or even Jeremy Irons starred, this may easily have been a classic, but Orlando Bloom unfortunately seems completely miscasted. He is fairly dry and unlikable. The antagonist (I don't even remember the name, but it was the Templar dude?) is better, though deliver's his lines fairly awkwardly. This ultimately pulls down apon the experience.
Despite these shortcomings, there was never a moment in this 3 hour long movie I felt was boring or unneeded. The director sculpted each scene with care, and besides multiple cringy lines and awkward dialogues (usually involving our beloved Orlando Bloom), the movie has a plot and message incredible to see.
So to end, the movie is incredibly enjoyable, with the action and drama being superior to many other movies, but unfortunately is pulled back due to some bad casting and poor writing. All in all, I would grant it a 6. Definitely worth watching if you have interest in history, or enjoy movies set in the middle ages. If you aren't someone who can easily sit through a 4 hour epic like Lord of the Rings though, you'll have trouble seeing Kingdom of Heaven through till the end.

Alright, so lets sum up what this movie is about, exactly.

Lets ignore the history, the lack of authenticity, the lack of accuracy, lets ignore ALL of that. I know a movie director will not get right the square formation or the specific maneuvers of the battle of Austerlitz, and frankly, Scott didnt even try. Watch Waterloo (1970) or even the 2002 TV SHOW for a better portrayal of that. Lets ignore that.

Lets focus on the basics.

Character development: A movie is a story, told about characters, characters who are historical figures, characters who we need to UNDERSTAND, to empathize with, to hate, to FEEL. We have to understand them in order to feel these things. Do we understand this Napoleon? No. Joaquin Pheonix is simply NOT the guy for this movie, I am sorry. He simply isnt. Do we get his family background, where he is from? A corsican backwater? Do we understand him? do we feel him? Do we know his family, his friends? his aspirations? his fears? do we know him? truly know him? No. We do not.

Is this movie about Josephine? No, do we understand her? still no.

WHAT THE HELL is this movie about? a lovestory between napoleon and josephine? IF so then why not change the name to be about this? Lets say that is the case, is this a good love story? Still NO. not pride and prejudice, not jane eyre, nope, not at all. Very little romance, very little engaging dialogue, very little quotable moments.

How about the plot? Its BORING. jesus christ is it boring. Its 6 or 7 battle scenes filled with stuff between napoleon and josephine and some other stuff that leaves things lacking. Plot is boring.

Audio is lacking, sometimes in the movie i could barely hear what the hell they were saying. Who did this shit? Is this a joke?

I am not going to go into the battles or accuracies or whatever. Who cares. I dont care about accuracy, i just want a good movie. This ISNT a good movie, period. You simply cannot tell a good story about Napoleon with only 2.5 hours. You could maybe do a good job if you just talk about say, Toulon, the Coup, Austerlitz, Waterloo, or maybe JUST about him and josephine, or maybe just about a small segment of his life. This movie tries to cover way too many things, battles, Napoleon, his rise and downfall, his relationship with josephine, and it falls flat on ALL OF THEM.

You want to demonize Napoleon? FINE, go ahead! Its ok to have an opinion about him, but your utter ridiculous distortion is just that, complete rubbish and distortion. Did you bother with his domestic reforms, the Napoleonic Code? or the infrastructure program? Or anything else he did besides military? Did you bother explaining why he became the emperor, the plebiscite? Did you bother explaining the assignation attempt on him ? What about his family? Did you bother with the family and the friends and marshals? No. You did not. You did not care about history, or Napoleon, nor did you bother with telling his story, because you dont care. You simply cannot be bothered with these details. Who cares right? After all, i wasnt there! Neither were you! WHO CARES ABOUT HISTORY!?!?!