I watched The Kingdom on HBO the other night.  It was a very good movie and Jamie Fox did a great job in the movie as did the other actors as well.

The movie featured a fictional terrorist strike against Americans in Saudi Arabia post 9/11.  The kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the movie is even more charged dynamically in the movie than it is today, but not by much more.

The FBI is not welcome in the investigation as politically The Kingdom does not want Americans on the ground outside select areas in Saudi Arabia.  As the team arrives in Saudi Arabia their firearms, badges and passport are taken by local military police.

It is under extremely limited circumstances that a farce of an investigation takes place and only gets real when the same terrorists attempt to kidnap and kill an FBI agent just as the FBI is finally on its way to the airport to leave the country.  This kicks off a peculiarly unrealistic fire fight in the streets of a major city where the good guys are able to shoot all the bad guys despite being pinned down in something very similar to an ambush.

The terrorists apparently can carry off a precision bombing exercise, but can’t shoot straight into opposing fire.

OK, so I’m getting a little eager to see the new Batman movie.  I might even venture to the theaters for this one.  I thought that Batman Begins was an excellent movie and this one, again starring Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger, looks and sounds like its going to be better than the rest.

I was reading this article about it today, which pretty much confirmed my impressions and I had to laugh at the ad running next to it, featuring this girl pointing at her chest.  The T-Shirt reads, I drink your milk shake and seems to have a person drinking a milkshake with a 20 foot straw or something.

I can think of a number of similar double entendres that could kick off that campaign further, things like

Can I light your candles?

or

Can I nip your buds? (You know roses)

I really regretted missing this movie when it played in the theaters.  Fortunately, it came out on DVD and we prepared to watch it on our projector with a great sound system.  This normally far exceeds the movie theater experience of anything short of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Unfortunately, this movie was a little bland to say the least.

The Egyptian themes with replica pyramids, and the slave revolt against the false god seemed like another repeat of Star Gate, including the adolescent boy who didn’t quite manage to die in this movie.

All in all, I wouldn’t even recommend watching this on DVD, unless you are the type of person to watch everything that goes through the video rental store anyway.  I’d recommend just waiting for this one to show up on HBO some day. Don’t get me wrong, its an OK story and will keep you occupied and slightly entertained, but there are too few scenes with mammoths and saber tooth tigers and too much other well just nonsense. I’d rate this much higher than watching paint dry and a little below going shopping for modern furniture But not nearly as bad as watching reality tv.