Kingdom of Heaven

Director: Ridley Scott
Main Cast: Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Ghassan Massoud
Writer(s): William Monahan
Director of Photography: John Mathieson
Producer: Ridley Scott
Editor(s): Dody Dorn
Original Score By: Harry Gregson-Williams & Stephen Barton
Release Date: 2005 May 6

Ridley Scott, of Gladiator fame, has put together quite a cast for this Crusade. Balien, played by a rather one-dimensional Orlando Bloom, is a blacksmith and the bastard child of a lord. Conveniently, Godfrey, the stoic I'm-looking-for-someone-to-carry-on-my-legacy Liam Neeson, finds Balien, his son, making swords in a non-descript village. Having just lost his wife and unborn child to suicide, a far too underdeveloped portion of the storyline, Balien is distraught and angry and doesn't react amicably to his father's abrupt appearance. These emotions may be hard to discern by the nuances of the character, but there are some brutal actions against a pick-pocketing priest that provide some indication that the peasant is emotionally distraught and, in some respects, not terribly stable. Given the opportunity by his father to become a lord and join the Crusades, Balien hesitantly accepts the challenge to go to the Middle East to live like a royal. Not unlike Pirates of the Caribbean, Orlando moves from being a peasant sword maker to an untarnished hero, the difference here is that there is no damsel to rescue and the transformation is almost instantaneous, so quick in fact that the death of his wife and his grievous deeds are quickly forgotten. We get mention of it only to hear that he goes to the Holy Land in hopes that his good deeds will "earn" her way out of Hell. (Suicide here is considered an unforgivable sin, damning the individual to Hell.)

The earning of one's salvation is clearly refuted in the Bible. This is a misconception of the truth of the Gospels. Balien falls for this mindset as was taught him by the "religious" leaders of his village. The decision of salvation of an individual is left to God alone. The idea of Balien, however hard he tries, earning his wife's eternal life is inconsistent with the fundamental message of Christianity. Despite that, it seems evident that he, within the context of the film, is motivated by his emotional distress and the religious disinformation that he receives regarding the state of his deceased wife and child. This serves as an obvious distortion of the message Christ but is, perhaps, contextually appropriate given the time period and undoubtedly acts wonderfully as a catalyst to move the plot forward. This will not be the only case of misconstrual of Christian beliefs in this film.

Following the acceptance of his father's invitation is a short scene of training Balien to be a knight. His education is quickly subsided when the group of not-so-merry men is attacked by lawmakers from Balien's village, come to fetch him for his crimes. The gruesome fight commences with some dastardly outcomes for many of the players, although not our beloved hero. Frankly to this point, I cared little about the death of Balien's wife, child, or anyone else in the film for that matter. Tha my sound harsh, but each of the dead characters' identification with the audience was underdeveloped. The pace of the story was far too swift to provide an emotional attachment whatsoever.

This was particularly true with Balien. Everything happened too quickly. He's a blacksmith. He's a knight. He's a warrior. He's a general. He's a savior. After the first ten minutes of celluloid runs by Balien commits no major atrocities, but becomes the driving force of good and truth for every scene. He is perfect and and in that notion somewhat uninteresting. This to me was the fundamental flaw of the film. Lack of character development of the one person we were to care most about, Balien. One may argue that his savageness on the battlefield or promiscuous relationship with the princess was "unheroic" and I would not necessarily argue that point, but nevertheless his demeanor is decidedly mundane. Even at 2 hour and 25 minute running time, Scott and Monahan leave us wishing we could know him and everyone else in the film much better.

This movie has all the look and feel of Gladiator, with none of the heart. The use of soft coloring filters, overexposed landscape shots, and graphic slow-motion battle scenes were all pages right out of Scott's Academy Award winning epic. But Kingdom doesn't live up to its predecessor, although it feels suspiciously familiar. Particularly this seems true with the battle scene styles. They are so close, in fact, that if you were to change the costumes of the players and the location, each battle could be transplanted seamlessly between the two films. Nevertheless, I liked it. Scott has a way of filming combat, especially historical war, with grisly realism. The blood spatter, the impaling of people on swords and spears, and the craziness of hundreds of warriors all fighting in a small area with excruciating detail that makes even the strongest stomach cringe. (Or in some cases, like the lady sitting behind me in the theater, exclaim boisterously with every hit, "Ahhhh! That hurts! Why would they do that? I don't think I can watch this!--Please don't. If you must make comments at every turn do us all a favor and leave. I, and I'm sure everyone else, would appreciate it. But I digress.) There is some battle scenes, however, that are overly tedious.

The extended scenes of the siege of Jerusalem were drawn out and boring. With such skilled recent films to draw comparisons with (read: Lord of the Rings) it is surprising that a film of this caliber moved at such a beleaguring pace. While the battles probably did last for days, or even weeks, the audience is not all that interested in feeling like that is how long they must endure them as well.

The sets and locations were incredible. Aside from the few scenes of obvious computer generated ancient Jerusalem, we are treated to expansive desert shots that seem to put you in the heart of the heat and dryness. Much of the interior shots were well constructed, well lit, and quite beautiful as well. We would expect no less from a multi-million dollar epic historical war piece or from Scott for that matter.

The main juxtaposition here was the battling religions. Admittedly, the Crusades were not a positive time in the history of the Church. Priests calling out, "It is not murder to kill infidels", doesn't exactly communicate the message of forgiveness, grace, and mercy that was the central pillar of Christ's ministry. And there were many examples of such disgraceful abuse of religious office througout the film. In fact, so many blatant depictions existed I wondered if Scott wasn't on his own personal Crusade, rather than dealing with the actual historical context. There was one memorable positive and truthful moment involving a Christian religious leader. Speaking to Balien, this counselor says, "What God desires is here and here"; pointing to Balien's head and heart. This was, in my opinion, one of the most honest moments of the film. If one assumes that the head and heart are representative of the fundamental essence of a human being, then this is truly what God desires. He wants us to be men and women of grace, mercy, and love; vessels of His truth.

Muslims, however, were painted in the film with far more restraint and compassion than the Christians. There were some characters with definable weakness and a thirst for blood, but in general this was not the case. And even these "evil" characters were undeniably less savage than those on the side of the Church. In fact, the Muslim population of the film was primarily represented by their king, Saladin (a magnificent Ghassan Massoud). He was a man with a desire for peace. But he struggled with protecting his people and their historical and religious landmarks and living in harmony with those who had invaded. He was not a savage nor a radical, but simply a man that wanted the best for his people.

Bottom Line: Scott and Monahan create a beautifully filmed movie. The fast pace of the story and lack of believable character development leaves little behind to admire but the scenery, the well choregraphed battle scenes, and the credits. Quite honestly I was not sad to see it end. Too many characters possessed only bad traits and others only good traits, the characters had little internal struggle. These caricatures did not play well for a story line that is primarily about development of those characters. This film is probably worth seeing for the visuals and has some thought-provoking dialogue, but blame the editing and the directing for the rest of the annoyingly preconceived journey.

A disappointed, 6 out of 10.

~RG