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I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Islam: Empire of Faith" is quite good. I can't really fault much of its content. However, sadly, the documentary stops in the 16th century!! This does a disservice to Islam and provides absolutely no insight into Islam today and its relations with the rest of the world. What it does cover is from the birth of the religion in the 7th century, the early days of Islam, the Crusades and the final great years of Islam during the reign of Suliman the Great. Throughout the documentary, you hear lots of experts, see lots of video from various great cities, artwork and the like all set to nice music, Ben Kingsley's lovely narration and great polish.My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the film seemed a bit too positive. In other words, instead of a critical look at the religion or Muhammad (which I would also like in a film about Christianity or Buddhism), it's mostly a glowing portrait. The only exception is that it talked about the crazy Egyptian who rules over Jerusalem and helped to spur on the Crusades (and this is the only documentary about the Crusades I've seen that talks about this). Still, it's well made and worth seeing even if a bit incomplete.

There are two big problems with this series. First, with only three episodes, this series is far too short to cover the subject properly. Secondly, the series is heavily focused around Islam's interaction with the Christian West, which distorts the history. The episodes cover the early years of Islam, the Eastern Crusades and the Ottoman conquests in the West.Nonetheless, this might still have been a decent introduction - which is clearly what it is intended to be. Unfortunately, this is very much a post 9/11 series which reacts (understandably) against the more indiscriminate rage felt by some Americans at that time (which was also understandable). The result is a very politically correct series that distorts history quite badly. For instance, the series describes Janissaries as Christian boys who were "recruited" by the Turks and "brought into the Muslim faith". In fact, the devshirme process involved kidnapping the young male children of Christians whose lands had been conquered by the Turks, forcibly converting them to Islam and turning them into slave-soldiers. These sort of mealy-mouthed attempts to obscure or excuse away the nastier parts of Muslim history are a constant in the series and totally undermine it; this is politics, not history. I'd recommend Joseph Hogarty's "Europe from its Origins" for a much better view of Islam from a Western perspective.

Funded mostly by Iranian state oil and mining companies, this documentary is dazzling in its presentation, but careless about the historical facts. A mixed bag of a documentary, but especially good at the "docu-drama", "edu-tainment" end of the documentary spectrum.One of the most interesting parts of the documentary as presented on the DVD is the "making of" segment which allows one to see some of the means of production and just how much of the film was guided by the director and his Iranian translators and handlers.Some parts are highly entertaining and others are tendentious and "propagandizing". It is in some ways a tour-de-force of the "infomercial", but this time for an entire civilization.

I loved every bit of this documentary, I was really eager to know the genesis and the expansion of Islam. I would recommend this movie/documentary for anyone who wants to have an insight on Islam. And i would also recommend it seeing on a big screen TV. Also the narration by Ben Kingsley is phenomenal.Not many people know that Kingsley is a Muslim ( born to an Indian Muslim Father and British Mom).In this present era, with everything thats been said on TV, this is a great eye-opener for the most beautiful religion of the world. For anyone and everyone to know the history and the truth , i highly recommend.