Kingdom of Heaven

Ridley Scott's previous historical epic, the 2000 Best Picture winner Gladiator, was a tedious affair, a handsomely-mounted but intensely shallow film featuring neither exciting action sequences nor any real insight into Ancient Rome. In fact, the film has very little going for it, save some glossy cinematography, nice costumes and, of course, Russell Crowe. Even if the half-cocked movie around him failed to satisfy, Crowe's Maximus at least fit the bill, a larger-than-life, iconic character who nevertheless felt vulnerable and human.

Kingdom of Heaven manages to precisely reverse this problem. What you end up with after 140-some odd minutes of investment is not very much: no insight into the Middle Ages in which the film is set, very little practical information about The Crusades, a feel-good and woefully oversimplified conclusion, a smattering of worthwhile action sequences admist a sea of overlong speechifying and uninteresting backdoor political shenanigans and court intrigue. But this time, rather than a well-realized, engaging main character lost within a complex and dreary narrative, we have a challenging and very relevant story hamstrung by one of the weakest lead performances of any 2005 film.



Behind that mask is the leprous King Baldwin, voiced by Ed Norton, a fascinating character based on a real monarch whose Christian forces ruled Jerusalem in the 12th Century. Unfortunately, the film isn't about Baldwin, who along with the noble Muslim general Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) has managed to forge a tense peace in the Holy Land, with Jews, Muslims and Christians living side-by-side in relative harmony.

Kingdom in Heaven, for whatever reason, chooses to instead focus on Bailan (Orlando Bloom), a blacksmith who learns that his father, Lord Godfrey (Liam Neeson), has been off fighting in the Crusades. He joins Godfrey in the Holy Land just in time to learn a few lessons in swordsmanship from the old man before watching him die and vowing to serve King Baldwin in his stead.

Neeson at this point must never again sign on to train a young guy how to fight in a movie. This is getting goddamn embarrassing. As if Phantom Menace, Batman Begins and Gangs of New York had not yet provided him with enough opportunities to explore this character. Once he's dead, Bailan suddenly becomes the world's most kickass knight as well as its most noble and forthright.

By focusing exclusively on the half-assed story of Lord Bailan, Scott makes a crucial, crucial error. This is a fascinating world he's created, and it really lives on screen. Unlike Gladiator, where each new character felt more fictionalized and stock than the next, Kingdom of Heaven is full of complex figures being portrayed by great character actors. There's Brendan Gleeson as the vile and aggressive Reynald, who wishes to start a war with Saladin. One of my favorite British actors, David Thewlis, shows up as Godfrey's confident, Hospitaler, before being unfortunately sidelined after the opening half-hour. Of course, there's Norton's King Baldwin, wasting away behind gauze and a mask but determined to see his dream of a peaceful Jerusalem realized. And also, Jeremy Irons, all scarred up as the King's faithful assistant, Tiberias.

And then there's Bloom, who could not be more dead, lifeless and bland in the lead role. We're supposed to be watching the store of Bailan's transformation, from a bereaved blacksmith who has just lost his child to illness and wife to suicide into a mighty warrior and the savior of the city of Jerusalem. Instead, we get a whiny little twit, prone to making snap decisions that make no sense and able to command legions of troops despite not looking like he's old enough to grow pubes.

I liked Bloom as an elf in Lord of the Rings just fine, but he's so entirely wrong for this kind of role. Bailan cries out for an actor with real presence, and also one who is believable, physically, for this kind of role. Bloom looks about as much like a soldier in this film as Woody Allen in Bananas. The thought of him taking on several swordsman with his bare hands (as he's called on to do in the film) is patently ludicrous. And seeing him face-to-face with venerable character actors like Brendan Gleeson, guys who are actually intimidating on screen, doesn't do much for Bailan's stature.

Sure, the film has problems aside from the main casting. As with Gladiator, the plotting itself seems like an afterthought, a framework for Scott to insert set pieces and action scenes into more than its own story. At the film's opening, Bailan's reason for going to war is to rescue to condemned soul of his wife, who recently took her own life. By the half hour mark, this motivation has evaporated and isn't mentioned again. William Monahan's script is full of such pedestrian touches and lazy oversights.

Remember Gladiator, how an extended side story about a plan to break Maximus out of prison went nowhere and added nothing to the film? Here, we get several such subplots, including a long section of the film devoted to a conspiracy to kill the King's evil successor to the throne, which are established in labored expositional scenes only to be dropped by the film's conclusion.

The action, while keeping with Scott's unfortunate recent trend towards blurry, artificially sped-up jumble, is cleaner and more intense than Gladiator, and is notable for its high level of gore. There's a lot of blood splatter and such in this film, which is an increasing rarity in modern Hollywood, and always nice to see. We are, after all, talking about The Crusades, among the most brutal and bloody conflicts in human history.

It's a conflict that, unfortunately, continues on to this day in a different form, and an end title directly acknowledges the film's relevance to modern geopolitical issues. Scott tries, to his credit, to weave in political commentary throughout the film, although as you'd probably expect, there's nothing too meaningful to be found here. I suppose, on one level, it's surprising to see a mainstream Hollywood film in which the expulsion of Christians from the Holy Land is considered a happy ending. But on the other hand, feel-good ecumenical dialogue about how peoples of all religions should and can learn to live together without conflict is kind of hard to swallow in 2005 without some sort of philosophy or worldview to back it up.

Too often, Kingdom of Heaven plays fast and loose with heady, complicated issues. Ridley's previous film, Black Hawk Down, was accused of this as well. I felt that film worked as a battle recreation and nothing more; it was obviously more interesting in making the viewer experience the reality of being in combat than providing insight into the sociopolitical situation in Somalia. The same can't be said of Kingdom of Heaven, which genuinely does try, and fail, to give the viewer some understanding of the issues at play in 12th Century Jerusalem.

One example...At a crucial juncture in the film, an offer is made to Bailan by the King's closest advisors. They will assassinate the husband of the King's Sister (Eva Green, best known for being naked throughout the entire film The Dreamers), the rightful heir to the throne once the King dies, if Bailan will agree to take his place and lead the army of Jerusalem. Bailan refuses, believing that to agree to assassinate someone would be wrong.

But if this assassination would save the lives of thousands that would otherwise be lost to war? Women and children? Is that really so wrong? The film never stops to explore this idea, taking Bailan's oversimplified understanding of honor at face value. It seems to me a more interesting film would explore this decision and its ramifications for Bailan and Jerusalem. Would he feel guilty after the ensuing war, a war he could have stopped? In, say, samurai films, when the main character makes a questionable decision based on personal morality or a sense of honor, he's often confronted by the consequences of these decisions later on. In Kingdom of Heaven, decisions are made, the story is moved forward (somewhat) and all is forgotten in preparation for the next fancy bit of swashbuckling.

Anyway, you get the idea. There's a lot going on in Kingdom of Heaven, but Ridley's too busy giving Orlando Bloom long, admiring close-ups and using computer effects to make armies seem larger than they are to pay any attention. He makes this immense, lavish productions and then gets so lost in the little details, he forgets to make the thing fun, lively or interesting. Gladiator's long scenes of Senators discussing the turns of the Senate have been replaced with long scenes of knights and lords standing around discussing the turns of the negotiations with Saladin. But surely there was something interesting happening in the Arab world in this time period, right? Why can't we see that?

I don't mean to be too harsh towards the film. I do think it has much more going for it than Gladiator, which makes it surprising the the public's reaction to this seemed so much less enthusiastic. I found it a good deal more watchable and engaging, thought it looked better and featured better, more crisp action scenes, and I liked a whole lot of the performances. If anything, I'm disappointed the film isn't better. It never becomes more than the sum of its parts, and that dreadful Bloom performance just pulls everything down right when the story should be gaining momentum and taking off. Kingdom of Heaven is an interesting film that starts with a lot of promise, but it's hardly the sort of thing you'd want to watch more than once.