Review: Kingdom of Heaven
The theater was curiously empty for opening weekend for this blockbuster. Perhaps 100 people rattled around the largest room at the gigaplex. Granted, it was a dry and fairly warm spring evening in Seattle and yet there was a sense that this film was not the big deal it should be.
Now, the Spousal Unit loves this stuff. She would devote an entire room to functional swords and daggers (none of that decorative junk for her) if space permitted. Unsurprisingly she was much less concerned with the niceties of storytelling than usual.
I am a huge fan of director Ridley Scott. Every time I see him on TV or a DVD special feature I am more impressed than before. This time out I kept waiting for the big conflict with the big payoff but it never happened.
Problem is, there isn't really an antagonist. The scheming Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas) is sort of jealous towards Balian (Orlando Bloom) but they don't come into direct conflict, at least not much. Also, Guy is taken out of the way prior to the major battle sequence so he has no influence on the outcome.
Saladin is not the antagonist, either, played magnificently by Ghassan Massoud. He just wants to maintain the tenuous peace with the Christians, some of whom are tired of the peace.
Maybe the antagonist is War itself. Still, as the film amply displays, war or peace is made through choices with either state turning on the word of the right person. So, War isn't it, either.
This lack of a clear antagonist drained most of the drama from the story. The protagonist Balian found himself in deadly peril, to be sure, except that it was against men who didn't really mean him harm.
The score recalled Blackhawk Down, which I consider a better film. Visually, Kingdom of Heaven will be familiar to fans of Mr. Scott's recent works. Terrific detail in every frame, wonderful performances from every face on the screen, and still won't be enough.
A word regarding the speculation that this is a message film. It is not, in the sense that many hoped it would rail against the War on Terror. There is a fine speech near the end where Balian explains that Jerusalem has been changing hands for so long nobody really has a claim, and everybody does. Salidin is portrayed as a cunning warrior but one who understood the cost of war and so preferred to avoid it. Is that being overly kind? No more than omitting the butchery of the Crusades themselves.
I liked the movie but Mr. Scott should have done better.