Don't buy US version!!
From [...]
"About the new U.S. Release Version:
The film is currently 30 minutes shorter than the previous Dutch version and the story has been streamlined and sharpened bringing the characters and the conflict into greater relief. This new version has a new ending, some new scoring and a couple of new original songs written for the film."
Let me tell you, they really chopped up that ending.
Imagine taking 30 minutes worth of awesome storyline wrap up and squeezing it into 2 minutes. All that information and character wrap up and explanations for why these new characters are in the story and why they are doing what they are doing....gone. Replaced by some haphazard BS. Almost like it had been written by someone completely new who'd never written more than a junior high story for mediated english class.
Aside from the ending, the rest of the story line is totally awesome. Great character development, actions of the characters made sense and fit...
No Hollywood Gloss Needed!!
This film is quite a breath of fresh air in comparison to the higher budget scifi films out there; where the writer's pen is often ever visible. In this film, you're thrown into a time nowhere near as safe or logical as ours and yet the film is catching enough in its realism to compensate for the lack of Hollywood gloss.
In addition, this is a family appropriate film with a wonderfully realistic and mature nature well blended into it. The reality it applies allows parents to watch it without wanting to enact some form of self-strangulation and yet allows children to understanding the world has had and still does contain more serious things, without being terrifying.
This film is also entertaining without superhuman qualities used as plot crutches, which is amazing, to say the least. Additionally, there is some teen romance, a realistic amount of death/blood considering this kid is hurled into the year 1212, and some violence. However, all of it is met with real...
A 'Whole Family' Movie
Right at the outset it needs to be said that there are three versions of this movie. The Netherlands [Kruistocht in spijkerbroek] version is 138 minutes long; the German version is 125 minutes, and the North American is stripped down to 100 minutes.
That said, this is a wonderful movie for traditional values, especially religious, families. In a sense, it is a clever comparison between the lack of Christian faith in the modern boy, Dolf, with the simple, trusting faith of the bulk of the people on the Children's Crusade. I think the movie was quite fair in its treatment of both sides. Of course, they had to show the monk-leader to be anything but Christian, which is a negative. But, he clearly is the exception, not the rule, among the believers. In one of the climactic scenes the behavior of the monk and Dolf was compared, in that the monk talked a good talk, but it was Dolf who acted over and over again to help the people. We don't know Dolf's inner spiritual life,...
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