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KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005)
Christians vs. Muslims...so what else is new? If historical battle epics are more about texture than story, actors who look and feel right more than those that actually create somebody I'd go so far as to call compelling, and conveying a feeling of events of monumental historical importance more than providing an accurate history lesson, Kingdom Of Heaven would probably rank as a success. At its most basic level, this must be said: of all the movies with big giant CGI armies in the last several years, the big giant CGI armies here look the best. I don't know if it's quite enough in my book; no, no it's not. But for megabudget historical battle epics, you could do worse than Kingdom Of Heaven which at least always looks good and feels right, even if it is often a bit of a yawner. If you thought Troy was stolid and humourless, this one's an emotion coma. Orlando Bloom stars, swinging a sword for his fifty-fifth movie in a row even though no matter how much mud, blood and beard you paste on his face he still looks like Timberlake. He plays a French blacksmith (no surprise that even the Frenchmen have a reliably English accent), mourning his wife's suicide when his crusading father (Liam Neeson) offers him a new life in a land of opportunity - Christian-occupied Jerusalem, which is continually being eyed by the vast Muslim armies of Saladin (Ghassan Massoud). Oh, you can guess the rest...dude gets to Jerusalem, makes friends in power and enemies in power, is offered the throne upon the death of its leper king (an uncredited Edward Norton) but turns it down because that wouldn't be right so a real douchebag gets it, and there's two eye-rolling pre-battle speeches where most movies of this sort subject you to just one...a more exciting movie might have inspired me to look into how much of it was based on fact, but Kingdom Of Heaven is too mild to provoke that kind of investigation. It has mostly good Christians, and a couple of wicked Christians. It has mostly good Muslims, and one Muslim who is a little hasty and aggressive but not "bad". That it would offend anybody of either faith (as it reportedly has) says more about them and their faith than it does about the movie. This could have benefited by more of an emphasis on Massoud's Saladin; a ruthless but wise and fair leader who Saddam Hussein honestly believes he takes after, and his codes would probably have made him into the most well-rounded character here if his screentime gave him the chance. As an entertaining spectacle, Kingdom Of Heaven offers few surprises; siege by fireballs, a dastardly madman in the dungeon, siege towers a-plenty, battle scenes where all that can be heard is a lone, mournful soprano or violin. It does show one thing I'm sure I've never seen before, and I don't know if it's ever even happened before - two huge armies ride out to do battle, and stop within glaring distance of each other while their leaders meet in the middle. They shoot the shit for a minute, agree NOT to fight, and the aggressing army goes home! Also of note is Marton Csokas as one of the movie's few true villains, a Templar who just wants to kill as many Muslims as he can find; his fate is so goofily, modernistically humiliating it probably qualifies as the only intended laugh in a movie that otherwise makes Troy look slapsticky in comparison. While even days after posting a positive review for Gladiator I came to regret it, it was more lively than this. Better than average might not be enough praise to warrant a positive review, but I feel a little better about it now. (c) Brian J. Wright 2005 BACK TO THE K's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |