Kingdom Of Heaven

Synopsis: The year is 1184. In a French village a young blacksmith Balian (Orlando Bloom) is in despair after the death of his wife and child. A band of knights en route to the Crusades arrives, led by the Baron Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson), who introduces himself to Balian as his father. Godfrey invites his son along to the Holy Land, where Christians are in a shaky peace with Muslim leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud). As power-mongering breaks out among the Crusaders, it is up to those with integrity, Balian foremost among them after his fath dies defending him, to try to preserve the dream of a "kingdom of heaven" where Christian and Muslim can live in peace.

All the ingredients for a super epic are here: gargantuan armies of knights and Arabs marauding across exotic locations; fabulous battles with fearsome weaponry; men with devotion to the highest ideals and those with a blood-and-power lust fuelled by religious fanaticism. Unfortunately there are also plenty of ingredients that make for a formulaic and predictable tale.

First, we have the long-lost father, who imparts wisdom to his son, and then on his deathbed hands over the sword. We have the ailing king (Baldwin IV, who happens to be a leper) whose crown is sought by usurpers, especially Guy de Lusignan (Martin Csokas), an archetypal, villain, whose co-conspirator Reynald de Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson) is only too happy to encourage war with Saladin. Guy just happens to be married to the King's beautiful sister Sibylla (Eva Green). Of course, the first glance between the exotic Sibylla and Balian tells all - they are smitten with each other and this will create great animosity from Guy towards Balian. Then there is the wise counsellor Tiberias (Jeremy Irons) who helps the king maintain the fragile peace, wards off schemers and defends the principle that Jerusalem should be open to people of all faiths. Finally, there is  the Saracen leader, Saladin, and the peace-seeking Christians like Tiberius. Oh, did I mention the compulsory quotient of gore: blood spraying from slit throats, and soldiers frying in boiling oil?

Despite these sort of elements which we've seen so many times in so many better films, Scott's Gladiator, 2000 being a prime example of the latter, there are some admirable qualities, the most outstanding being the impressive production values in creating a stunningly exotic Middle Eastern world. As is typical of Scot, extensive research went into getting costuming, artefacts, weaponry and so on looking right. The ubiquitous CGI effects are also there in abundance, with 2000 extras being digitally enhanced into an army of 200,000. But lavish production values cannot stand alone and one can only wish that Scott and his writer William Monahan had put as much effort into making a film that held our interest. instead of falling back on fantasy film tropes. Thus. for instance, are we really expected to believe that Balian, a blacksmith, after one lesson would be able to face off a posse of heavily-armed soldiers or have been the sole survivor of a shipwreck compete with horse and his father's sword?

Bloom, a bland actor at best,is miscast in the lead role. You need a Russell Crowe to pull off a meaty role like this (not that he would be able to save Scott's 2010 clunker, Robin Hood) and Bloom is straight vegetarian (which is otherwise a good thing). But he is only the most obvious instance of one of the worst cast films of all time (Scott was also the producer so he can't shift the blame) - David Thewlis as a good night! Brendan Gleason as a Crusader turned bad!, Eva Green as a Jewish Queen!!! Hello....!!  It's reminiscent of the days when Hollywood tried to pass off Elisabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony.

Scott's pleas for religious tolerance are well-meaning but ineffectual and heavy-handed such as when Tiberias announces that all these years he thought he had been fighting for God, but now he realises it was only for wealth and land, or when at the end of the we read on screen that "1000 years later peace in the kingdom of heaven is still elusive". It is highly unlikely that Scott's film will make any contribution to that peace, if only because it is unlikely that many people will see it.

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