MOVIES - Kingdom of Heaven

Score: 6.2

After reading up on this movie, I feel a little jilted. Apparently there is a 49-minute longer director’s cut version, wherein Ridley Scott’s more ambitious film-making is given further time to flounder or flourish. However, having seen just the standard theatrical release, I have to state that this movie largely flounders.

Shoddy characterization, cringe-worthy dialogue, poor acting (Bloom is especially guilty, though Liam Neeson seems to be growing more limited the more I see of him), and historical inaccuracies are simply too much to beat back the great action shots, good cinematography and score, good acting (Edward Norton was in that movie? WTF?), and a decent attempt at trying to connect with (and possibly ease?) Islamic-Christian tensions in the present day by looking to the past.

Perhaps that is the easiest and most direct place to discuss the merits and weaknesses of the film. Through some rather blatant dialogue symbolism, Scott sets up Jerusalem as more or less what Western audiences perceive it to be to this day: a place of mystical powers and history, which, it is perceived, many millions are willing to kill to obtain in order to achieve their lofty (and completely misguided) sense of heaven. Scott’s own view of that heaven quickly comes out however, as a mystical place that exists only in our heads and the only purpose of which is to serve as a sounding board for the epitome of whatever ideology we are under the sway of. Balian, Orlando Bloom’s character, gives a speech near the end of the film that advocates a completely secular understanding of God, worship, and the Crusades as a whole. To many people I think this is a big bone of contention, and rightfully so. Could the horrors of war turn even the most devout of medieval believers into some form of atheists? Absolutely. Did it turn men like Balian into such atheists? No. Firmly insulated by nobility, political power, and a fierce investment in the power represented by the Catholic clergy, leaders like that of Orlando Bloom’s character would never have advocated a 21^st century view of equal-but-different faiths, and that is just the biggest of all the historical fuck-ups of the movie. If, as Scott seems to have advocated, the movie was designed as an examination of religious conflict, his examination is both topical and completely unilluminating. The “we can all get along if we just understand we’re all human” approach is true, but none of the people in this movie, historically (or if their characters are imposed on the leaders of today), are secular humanists, and as much as it pulls at my bleeding heart strings, an impassioned plea for us all to abandon religion is not going to solve the problem and bring about the typical Hollywood ending this movie concludes with. It wouldn’t have in the past, and it won’t now. It’s really superficial proselytizing, and as much as I love left-leaning Hollywood for presenting this stuff, there are better ways of doing it. Check out Brokeback Mountain.

Still, for all the historical mistakes, there is a degree that his analysis of the possible peace between faiths (actively at war then, undoubtedly at tension with one another on a number of topics now) is useful, if not tastefully done. The very idea of touching a Crusade movie in our current religious climate is ballsy, if nothing else, and it’s not like Scott placed machine guns or suicide bombers in the movie in some messed up form – he kept it firmly within the limitations of the time period, and he deserves credit for it.

Other criticisms quickly have to come up though. Another one at the forefront is the simple sensation one gets, in watching the movie, that Scott bit off more than he could chew. There are too many characters, too little exposition, and too few major plot events to make up for it. For an example – rather than leaving Saladin as an enemy without back-story or conflict (which might have actually worked better for the movie, leaving only the final meeting between Balian and Saladin to show the Muslim character’s compassion and willingness to compromise – a far stronger showing, and one the actor likely would have been up to), needless scenes depicting an apparent conflict between him and one of his advisors are shown, the totality of which lead to nothing. Perhaps in the extra 49 minutes more is fleshed out, but I don’t see how it would be enough. In reaching for the epic scope, writer and director both missed the fine balance between personable and expansive. You sort of get the one, but the other is just a mish-mash of overly simplistic and mildly conflicted motives.

Besides story and plot however, there are several positives to the film. Much like The Painted Veil most of them revolve around the more technical aspects. For recreating Jerusalem in the Moroccan desert, the crew should be applauded. The special effects are good, and the action scenes are both more believable, better filmed, and just plain cooler than the ones in say, King Arthur. As much as I may deride Orlando Bloom’s acting, he has the swagger to control action flicks like few other. It’s too bad this movie wasn’t trying to be one.

Unlike The Painted Veil though, the acting wasn’t uniformly good or bad, with strong and weak points throughout, and the shots weren’t as uniformly beautiful or intriguing either – never once did I think to myself, “Wow, that was pretty cool how they did that.” It’s pretty prototypical filming, and it works for some things, for most, it well, flounders.