Crusade in Jeans

In the end of the sub-seventeen soccer game between Holland and Belgium, the selfish teenager Rudolf "Dolf" Vega (Joe Flynn) does not assist another player and loses the goal and the classification of the Durch team. He feels bad and when he meets his mother Mary Vega (Emily Watson), who is researching a prototype time machine, in the laboratory, he decides to return in time to fix the game.

He steals the access card of his mother and during the night, he breaks in the laboratory. However, he does not fit the correct date in the display and he is sent to 1212. He is attacked by marauders but he is saved by the young Jenne (Stephanie Leonidas), who is skilled in sling and is traveling through the forest to join The Children's Cuzade to Jerusalem. Dolf puts a milestone on the spot and follows Jenne and her friends. Sooner they join the Cruzade that is led by Father Anselmus (Michael Culkin) and a group of young noblemen. Dolf names himself Rudolf, the Duke of Rotterdam, and is assigned to take care of the children. When Dolf misses the chance to return home and is stranded in the Thirteenth Century, he follows the Cruzade and discovers the treacherous plan of Anselmus of selling the children to slave traders. But how can he convince the children that their charismatic leader is a traitor?

"Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek" is a Dutch-Belgian-Luxembourgish-German production with a pleasant and entertaining adventure. The story has flaws, the conclusion is weak, the CGI and costumes are very simple but the film is highly attractive for children and also for adults. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Cruzada, Uma Jornada Através dos Tempos" ("Crusade, A Journey through Time")

Or, Crusade in Jeans, as the international title goes. Based on a book by a Dutch writer this film tells the story of a young Dutch guy that ends up in the middle ages after a strange incident involving a time traveling device. He ends up in the middle of the German forests and found by a group of people from a crusade. A crusade of children that is heading towards Jerusalem.

I haven't read the book and as it is a children's book I probably won't get around to doing that now so I can only comment on how it is as a film. The film plays as a children's film: little rough action, no intense drama that gets more than a few seconds of screen time. I guess I might recommend it to kids between 8 and 12 years old. Anywhere outside that range will probably be bored by it. As was I.

Being Dutch I must say I was annoyed by the fact that everyone spoke English instead of the languages that were spoken in these countries back then: Dutch and German. I was even more annoyed by the fact that quite a few actors spoke the typically heavily accented English that non-native English speakers speak. I feel the film would have been better if the spoken language had been Dutch/German. That would probably mean even less chance in other countries though.

Altogether it isn't an entirely bad film, but it is meant for a rather narrow group of people. What makes it better is the way the scenes were worked out - most of them rather attractive. Getting the amount of children they were using to do what they needed to do is a true feat that I have a high amount of respect for. Still, it isn't an attractive film that I would ever pick to watch again.

6 out of 10 kids crusading for the better world.

A young teenager named Dolf Vega : Johnny Flynn, is transported by means of a travel machine, newly built by his beloved mother: Emily Watson, going to Middle Age , 1212, and there he sets out to join a children's crusade led by Nicolas : Robert Timmins, who formerly had a Christ vision that told him to carry out a divine expedition towards Jerusalem to defeat Muslims who invaded Holy Land . Along the way Dolf meets a beautiful girl called Jenne : Stephanie Leonidas. Dolf swears duty to protect them and decides that safety of the unfortunate children will be assured at whatever means. But the children are deceived when the organizer priest, Anselmus : Michael Culkin, attempts to sell them as slaves.

Adventure movie with a lot of time travels, feats, fights, action and spectacular battles, in which a contemporary teen wandering throughout a medieval scenario. There's another 1987 film concerning similar deeds, a Children's Crusade, it was "Lionheart" by Franklyn J Schaffner that resulted to be a real flop at boxoffice. This Crusade in Jeans is finely starred by Johnny Flynn as the adolescent who ends up in a Children Crusade where he confronts enemies by using modern techniques and learning the Crusade seems to be harder and trickier than he ever imagined . Being based on the succesful novel written by the Dutch Thea Beckman who gives a vivid character on the protagonist Dolf Vega well acted by Johnny Flynn . He is well accompanied by the valiant Jenne: Stefanie Leonidas with whom he falls in love, Emily Watson as his intimate mummy, Michael Kulkin as the nasty priest, Benno Furmann as a good friar, Herbert Knaup as a scientific, Robert Timmins as Nicolas, the cult actor Udo Kier, among others. This Netherland/ Belgium/Luxembourg was professionally directed by Ben Sombogaart.

The picture is partially based on historical events, succeeded after fourth Crusade, these are as follows : the historians tell about two possible Children Crusades, the first began in Germany when a German shepherd led about 7000 young people crossing Italian Alps and arriving in Genova, but many of them deserted or were abducted or sold as slaves, as in Europe as in far countries, as Alexandria, Egypt. Other history deals with thousands of children, around 20.000, led by a very young French shepherd called Esteban De Cloyes from Chateaudun and arriving in Saint Denis. Meant for kids, it turns out to be a decent, enjoyable and agreeable film. Rating 6.5/10. Worthwhile watching.

Other movies dealing with Crusades are the following ones : The Crusades by Cecil B DeMille with Henry Wilonson, Loretta Young, Ian Hunter. King Richard and the Crusaders by David Swift with Laurence Harvey, Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo, George Sanders. Lionheart 1987 by Franklyn J Schaffner with Eric Stolz, Talia Shire, Dexter Flecher, Nicholas Clay, Deborah Moore, Gabriel Byrne. Kingdom of heaven 2005 by Ridley Scott by Orlando Bloom, Lian Neeson, Eva Greene, Michael Sheen, Bernard Gleeson.

I waited for ages to watch this film, because as a lover of the book (which is highly recommendable for both older children and adults, in Dutch or in translation)I was afraid to be disappointed - and I was.

The director (who made some very qualitative other movies) was aiming at a younger audience than the mid teens that the book was meant for, andfor that group, he did a good job. It's an adventure film which is at the same time quite historically accurate and informative for that age group.

For me and my contemporaries who read the book in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and who think back to it with great love, the film is an abasement.

Many plot lines were changed. Some choices are understandable: women get a bigger role than they did in the book for example, technology has changed, and some parts of the story had to be left out so that the film wouldn't be too long. Some choices are less understandable, but probably sounded good when they were argued for by the scriptwriter: the main protagonist Dolf's personality has been changed substantially, many characters have been written out, new plots have been introduced. None of it works. The plot is incoherent, very unbelievable and lacks suspense.

The acting is poor.

The costumes are completely unbelievable because they are just too clean and new. The locations are also too clean. But mostly, the props annoyed me, especially the medieval paper and books - somebody learned how to make paper by hand and then reckoned that was enough to make it look medieval.

But the thing that irritated me most was the fact that the two hundred odd extras playing the children in the crusade look like happy, well-fed, healthy children in a high budget school play rather than the ill, starving, dirty, wild, desperate children that Thea Beckman portrayed so powerfully in her book.

I'm not saying they should have starved the child actors, obviously that's impossible. Nor am I saying they should have stuck to all the original twists and turns in Thea Beckman's plot, that would also have been impossible. You see, making this book into a film... is impossible.

There were a lot of bad choices made when making this film. The casting director, costume director, scriptwriter, and of course the director himself all made some bad choices. Would other choices have made for a better film? Maybe. Would they have made for a good film? No. In the end, the only important bad choice for this film was the very first one: the choice to make it.

ever since I was little I was apparently a big bookworm,and Crusade in Jeans was the book I devoured the most. I think I must have read it over 40 times.... so you can imagine that I was very exited about the movie. However, that level of excitement went down when I heard that they where going to put 2 of the characters into a new one, and I was afraid what would happen to the rest of the film. Would it be a Harry Potter 1 for me, when I was annoyed throughout the whole film about everything they cut&changed, or would it be a Harry Potter 4, where there where also many things cut and changed, but everything was so wonderfully done and even replaced with some fab new stuff that it didn't matter? Unfortunately, it was a Harry Potter 1. On the whole, the look of the movie is great, and it has great actors.If you haven't read the book I think it will be a enjoyable yet confusing experience. However, for me there are 2 big disappointments. The first is all of the great characters they've cut. Yes, Jenna is a wonderful girl, great actress, but I'd rather have seen both Leonardo and Mariecke. They are not the only characters that are missing, Peter, Frank, Father Johannes and many others. I also don't see the point of someone as Vick. Anselmus is awful enough on his own, he doesn't need an evil sidekick. Also, Father Johannes opposite Aselmus showed exactly what a bad character the latter has. Johannes was on the bad side too, but he repented and the children always liked him. Also, I think the brotherly protective feelings Dolf has for Mariecke are a big part of why he's so concerned with the children of the crusade. The original characters where a big part of the book, and I feel they should have been in the film. The second is that you don't really see the change that Dolf made to the crusade. He reorganised the whole crusade, giving each child a task they themselves could choose, regardless of status. This was unheard of at that time, yet it changed the children from obedient slaves into people with self confidence and a sense of unity. In the book you can see it very well by the change in characters such as Mariecke and Peter. I think this was a very important part of the book, that Dolf brings 20th century ideas to the middle ages, yet I didn't see that in the film. Overall, visually it looked very good and the actors that do appear are very good, and even I must admit that I like the change of the "process" from before the alps too the genua shore, but I hoped they'd be more true to the book. a bit of a disappointment for a crusade in jeans fan...