Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven is the latest epic from director Ridley Scott of Gladiator. For those of you who know and love Gladiator in Kingdom of Heaven you can expect more of the same. Kingdom of Heaven is a graphic and gory and slow paced costume epic. As with Gladiator the time is barbaric and warriors have a fatalistic attitude about their own imminent demise. Here the setting is not Rome in its days of decline but Jerusalem in 1182 during the first crusade. Now as with many blockbusters historical accuracy takes a backseat to entertaining story telling so there are elements from a number of crusades spanning hundreds of years distilled down to a two hour movie. The film is less about the pertinent motivations for the occupation of the Holy Land in 1182 than it is about the current state of affairs in the Middle East and the current trends of moral relativism.

Kingdom of Heaven stars Orlando Bloom as Balian a blacksmith of French origin who meets his father for the first time and joins him to cleanse himself of his past sins. I wasn’t sure if pretty boy Bloom could carry an entire movie by himself, he does have the presence necessary for the part, but the character does not have the essence that allows him to rise about the monstrous times he inhabits. Often he is dwarfed by the actors and scenery of giant presence around him. Here I think that lost feeling benefits him as Balian is often a pawn of men more powerful than he: be they his father or a series of kings. But his brand of melancholy is not the stuff of main heroic characters, more of those interesting second string characters who steal a few scenes. My greatest concern would be that Bloom needs to work on at least one film set in modern day or get type cast forever as a time period player, think Errol Flynn. Bloom looks good, strides through his lines and the desert with a wary grace, and handles a sword admirably. In a summer film often more than that cannot be asked of a lead character.

The supporting cast is what makes this film special. I was initially surprised to see that both Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons were in the film as they often seem to play the same type of character. However this makes sense in the film as one bows out early in the film and the other enters to fill the space. Marton Csokas from XXX plays a good heavy as the Templar leader Guy de Lusignan and Edward Norton is unrecognizable, again, as the king of Jerusalem. Eva Green plays Sibylla the wife of Guy, sister of the king, and love interest of Balian. Her role seems cold and lacking in punch but she does a good job playing a woman who walks a fine line between her public and her private life. The only problem being that since she is so cold it is difficult to tell whether she really likes Balian any better than she likes her husband.

Now the politics surrounding the film create the heart of the story but they are also the most complex and confusing. Jerusalem is held by the Christians and run by a king who is dying of leprosy. Now remember that this is 1182 and here Christian means Catholic. Most of the main characters seem to be French in origin judging from their names but as they say ‘in Jerusalem you are not judged on who you are but on what you are capable of becoming’ so the story never really bothers with nationalities. The king’s sister is married to Guy de Lusignan who is the leader of the Templar a fanatical order of knights willing to kill anyone who isn’t Christian. Since the king has no children the throne will pass to his sister when he dies. I guess there is no female hierarchy because it seems that as soon as she becomes queen she has to name someone king so that they can run things but about that I am not sure. So the king holds an uneasy alliance with Saladin the Muslim ruler allowing all pilgrims into the Holy Lands. Now the Muslims are painted with a broader stroke so that Saladin seems willing to maintain the peace with the king though later he is reminded that the only reason he came to power was because he promised he would take back Jerusalem. So the peace in Jerusalem seems doomed either way. This leads to a plot so thick that when the final battle was over my viewing companion turned to me and asked ‘Who won?’

The problem is that these motivations are more in line with 21^st century thinking than 12^th century thinking and so the story seems a bit hollow. With the turmoil and the mess in the Middle East it is not easy to declare one side good and one side bad or to declare the victor. So the film makes little judgments. Balian protects the weak so he is a good guy. Guy attacks helpless pilgrims so he is a bad guy. Everyone else is somewhere in between depending on if they are trying to avoid war or cause war. Thus Balian doesn’t care who wins the war and neither does the audience as long as some of the people we have come to know in the previous hour survive the battle.

Scott does a credible job with the cinematography portraying the ports and the vast deserts of the Middle East. The is a lot of open space and distance that is not portrayed as well since the characters appear in one location and then often cut to being in another with little travel involved. But the open spaces give the film its epic scope. The battle scenes are sufficiently gory and reminiscent of Braveheart and Gladiator in their appearance, editing, and music. Interestingly the heroes in France die a more epic death than the scores who die fighting over the Holy City. The final battle scene of the siege of Jerusalem reminds one of the Battle of Helm’s Deep from the second Lord of the Rings film. Of course there is less atmosphere and a complete lack of orcs, elves, and trolls to spice things up but it does have many of the same preparing the fortifications, rallying the troops, and hiding the women and children shots. Plus I finally understand why and how they used hot oil against siegers.

Despite the tone of this review I did enjoy this film. I don’t think I’m going to watch it again for a while but it did have some appealing epic battles, an intelligible story, and beautiful cinematography. But I had kind of hoped for more than this film offered. Considering some of the major disappointments at the box office this year there seems to be an opinion that I should take what I can get and be grateful for it. I would personally hope that the disappointing box office returns would convince Hollywood to try harder and not deliver the same product over and over again. But I seem to be in the minority on this. Still, Kingdom of Heaven is a satisfying action epic for those who liked Gladiator and Braveheart and are looking to add to their collection. Maybe next they will start moving into more modern wars like the War of the Roses or the Franco-Prussian War.