The Unseen Movie Review

Kingdom of Heaven

In the current political climate, producing a film about a bunch of Christians charging off to the Middle East to slaughter as many Muslims as they can instantly sets all alarm bells ringing. What’s the message? Is this pro-war or anti-war? How is Islam portrayed? What’s the agenda?

Yep, this is a big-budget Hollywood epic about the Crusades. It’s a fascinating part of history which to date hasn’t really been done much justice by the movies. There was 1935’s Cecil B De Mille epic The Crusades, which made a decent stab of things considering the constraints of the technology of the time, and then 1954’s King Richard and the Crusaders, which bizarrely starred Rex “Doctor Dolittle” Harrison as Muslim leader Saladin, and that, bar the odd brief mention in various Robin Hood movies, is about it.

It makes very little sense that there haven’t been more movies based on the various Crusading campaigns of the late 11th through to early 14th centuries. They have pretty much everything you could ask for in a spectacular piece of cinema – huge armies, powerful characters, confusion, tragedy, mistakes, victories and losses. Then there’s the noble enemy in the Third Crusade’s Saladin, portrayed as worthy of the utmost respect by, among others, Dante in The Divine Comedy and Sir Walter Scott in The Talisman. There’s also the various tales of devious and unscrupulous deeds from campaigners on the supposedly Christian side, adding a sense of ambiguity to the whole thing. It is grand, epic subject-matter, and needs grand, epic films.

So, whereas the Golden Age epic master De Mille was the ideal choice for a Crusades movie in the 1930s, today there is again one obvious candidate for director – Ridley “Gladiator” Scott.

As this film is effectively being sold as “the third Lord of the Rings movie, only without all that fantasy nonsense” – massive battles, sieges, a band of warriors trying to do what’s right, a massively evocative musical score and a bit of cross-cultural romance to boot – I suppose getting Orlando Bloom in as the main lead seemed a great idea. He’s used to this sort of thing after playing Legolas, after all – and he’s done the slightly more historical stuff in Troy to boot. The fact that he can’t act for toffee doesn’t matter – he looks pretty.

Yep, Orlando Bloom is not a good choice, although to be fair he does put in a good effort. Thankfully, he’s backed up by a superb supporting cast, from the well-known and respected Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton and Liam Neeson to the little-known but superb David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson.

Over all of this, however, lies Ridley Scott’s superb eye for a spectacular shot. It is just as visually impressive as you’d expect, as vast armies clash in the deserts round Jerusalem, siege engines advance, and swords and armour glint in the setting sun.

The political agenda? It has none. The purpose is simply to make truck-loads of cash, while sticking relatively close to historical record. Sure, there’s a bit of sixth form philosophy in here, the nature of good and evil, that sort of guff. But the primary reason to see this film is epic battles filmed by a master director. In that it does not disappoint. The only remaining question – in the events the film is based around, the Muslims won – can Hollywood bring itself to have the “good guys” lose?

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM