Winds and Breezes

Kingdom of Heaven - review

Kingdom of Heaven is Ridley Scott's new film. In fact, it is Ridley Scott's new Blood and Guts Epic. But then, it is Ridley Scott we have to thank for the new sub-genre of Blood and Guts Epic, for with the mighty work that was Gladiator he showed the world that the epic was not dead, no siree, far from it. And to prove it we have, in the last year, enjoyed (if that's your chosen verb) Troy, King Arthur and personally I skipped Alexander but I'm sure if you were a Colin Farrell fan, it had some merit. The Vangelis soundtrack certainly had merit.

But the daddy of 'em all (in this era anyway) is back with Kingdom of Heaven. This one could be a little bit contentious in light of the present political climate (proving that even over the course of 900 years, plus ca change and all that), given that it faces off the Christian Crusaders up against Saladin and his Muslim army, and indeed, it has given rise to a huge amount of debate amongst people who haven't even seen the film yet. Personally I've always felt you should see something before you trash it, which is why I haven't trashed Alexander (I just voted with my feet and bought the soundtrack without going to the film because Vangelis is a better mark of quality than the trailer was).

In the way that Gladiator was not necessarily a cast in stone 100% absolutely accurate depiction of what really happened in Rome but picks upon a character largely invisible to this world and places the weight of the story on his shoulders, Kingdom of Heaven isn't necessarily a fact driven depiction of the life of one man in a World Gone Mad. Ridley weaves the history around the story. The whole thing with the Crusades is, to some extent, a backdrop to a personal story, the story of the Hero.

The Hero, in this case, is Balian, and he's played by Orlando Bloom. This represents a certain amount of typecasting for Orlando because on this occasion, once more he's playing a simple blacksmith with the remit of being a Good Man. Only when he was a blacksmith trying to be a good man in Pirates of the Caribbean, the weather was a damn sight better. On this occasion, and similarly to the open sequence in Gladiator, it was snowing. I think I'd prefer Port Royal myself. Anyway, the concept of being good for Balian is somewhat lukewarm. When his wife is being buried by a cross on the side of a mountain, he's nowhere to be found. At least, I can't recognise him and Orlando Bloom is, to be fair, recognisable in this film (in a way that Edward Norton sort of isn't). Russell Crowe, the Hero in Gladiator, walked off with an Oscar, so the bar for playing the Hero in a Ridley Scott Blood and Guts Epic is pretty high. I didn't think he'd be able to carry it off, to be honest with you.

Still, the bar for playing the Hero in Troy, King Arthur and possibly (probably?) Alexander is a tad lower and Ridley Scott's a good director. He might actually know what he was doing typecating Orlando as a blacksmith.

So we have the Hero, who has lost his wife and child to non-political circumstances; with a caveat on the wife - she committed suicide and in the world of France/Europe in the twelfth century, this is politically a very bad thing to do. So Balian is not a happy camper in his smithy. However, God is about to send an opportunity in the form of the Hero's hitherto unknown father, a knight called Liam Neeson, nope, I got that wrong. A knight called Godfrey something or other and he is on the look out for Balian who is his illegit son, born of a union which Godfrey really wanted and Balian's mother was somewhat not in favour of. Godfrey is down on the legit offspring side so he abandons his holdings in the Holy Land to go find this illegit son he has and turn him into a knight. He does a very bad sales pitch and winds up leaving without the Hero, leaving you to wonder if you're going to have a film or not. Balian did look so very resolute about not leaving.

God's will hath no why and a little while later, after a pep talk from the local priest, the sort of pep talk that leaves the priest suffering hell before he is dead, the Hero is on his way to Jerusalem, being given a crash course in being a knight by his dad.

It's the kind of crash course that companies in twenty-first century world would kill for. He actually learns it pretty damn fast. Clearly he was already a diamond, just not quite cut properly. After that, his role in life is to save the people of Jerusalem. This bit is reinforced ad infinitum, first by daddy and then by his new best friends, Tiberius and the King of Jeruselem. Never quite copped what his name is, but I can tell you his sister's name was Sybilla.

Behind every great man there is someone who does the actual string pulling. In this case, that would be Tiberius. He has a lot of knights, and, by the sounds of things, a fairly good spy network too. Tiberius Is Jeremy Irons. I haven't seen Jeremy on the big screen for a good while, so it's like an old friend calling by. He has some splendid make-up. This guy looks like he has been through the wars. And the King, he's a wise chappy as well. He's Edward Norton and he has the fashion accessory of the film. He has the silver mask.

Identifying the bad guys in this film could be a little bit daunting, but lining up for duty is Guy de Lusignac, who looks more or less like a bad guy (who hasn't been through the wars, but by god when he goes to war, of course he's going to win) and Brendan Gleeson who is probably at risk of being type cast as Baddie in A Blood And Guts Epic. He does baaaaaaadddddddd things.

That's all on one side of the battlefield. Theoretically, you see, the Christian soldiers aren't fighting amongst themselves, because of course, they are all there out of the good of their religious hearts and are all Holy and of course, no one married to the king's sister is interested in actually being the King of Jerusalem, right?

On the otherside of the battlefield is Saladin, a name which I learn I have been pronouncing incorrectly since I first heard of him in Living History Part 4 when I was 10 years old. He has the command of the Saracens, and commands an army in the way that Maximus did in Gladiator did. With authority, and above all, with success. We don't see much of the Saracens, but what we do see of them reveals that realistically speaking, they have the same issues as the Christians do, great commander, some great soldiers and at least one hothead.

This being a Blood and Guts Epic, there are copious quantities of battles or localised fights. This being a Ridley Scott Blood and Guts Epic, there are many examples of the goodness of men (usually on an individual level, mind) too. And there's a huge setpiece closing battle sequence. Structurally, this is the reverse of Gladiator, where the huge setpiece battle was at the beginning, and the individual Hero against the Bad guy was at the end. The Hero has a couple of small skirmishes at the beginning, but no major man-to-man denouement at the end. Just a siege.

Leaving aside the grief, attacks and comments about historical accuracy, the main question you're going to be asking is "Is this a good film?" and WindsAndBreezes answer to that is "Yes". There are a number of reasons. One, Ridley pretty much wrote the design spec for films of this nature and currently no one does them better. They might have tried, but they've failed. Two, and this is somewhat surprising, Orlando Bloom is well up to the role he's been cast in. Now, I want to colour that statement by reminding you that I really didn't expect him to be, so he has far exceeded my expectations. I wouldn't suggest that he merits an Oscar for the role, but he turned a solid convincing performance. The cinematography is on a par with what you might expect, i.e. excellent. The script has a flaky enough opening few minutes, but after that it is well up to scratch.


So it's very watchable, and very much worth your eight euro or whatever it is your local cinema charges to get in. It is not, however, as emotionally charged a film as Gladiator was, so for that reason, I'm docking a star off. It's about 4.5 outof 6.

Edit: Mark is not in agreement at all ;-) but that's not a unique event.

posted by Winds and Breezes @ 12:39 PM