Dir. Ridley Scott
Written William Monahan
Starring Orlando Bloom, with Eva Green, Liam Neeson, David Thewlis, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, Alexander Siddig, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michael Sheen, Edward Norton. Yup, pretty much everybody.
Back when this first came out in 2005, I heard it was pretty much insipid crap with pretty pictures trying to cynically cash in on the big CGI battle fever the nation briefly caught thanks to the LORD OF THE RINGS films. But over the years, something extremely unusual happened -- director Ridley Scott, more or less on his own, brought out a director’s cut which included more than 45 more minutes. And as word got out about this cut, people started talking very positively about the film. So much so that the consensus seemed to switch from negative to positive. When does that ever happen? So, given that Scott’s most recent PROMETHEUS decidedly underwhelmed me, I thought I’d give him an opportunity to win me back with his saved-from-popular-oblivion swords n’ sandals rags-to-riches religion-to-atheism historical fiction topical crusades epic.
What
Scott and co. have crafted here is something decidedly old-fashioned.
It’s a big budget, serious, humorless, talky epic heroes journey which
has some not-so-subtle subtext related to our own political world.
There’s some big battles and some awe-inspiring images, but to get to
them you’re going to have to actually pay attention to who’s who and
what they’re all up to. Which is probably why the studio, at the request
of underestimator-of-the-American-public-in-chief Tom Rothman, cut all
that stuff out for the theatrical release. You can see how that would
cripple the film, in that it’s pretty much the only reason to tell this
particular story. It’s all about the various arbiters of power in the
region, the paths they represent, and the way they interact with each
other. Of course, given that they live in crusades-era Jerusalem
(currently under new management), that interaction is sometimes going to
involve huge scale action scenes and a respectably high ratio of
beheading scenes to non-beheading scenes.
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| Some of those that work forces / are the same that wore crosses |
Into
this mess steps Balian (Orlando Bloom), a simple French blacksmith with
a British accent (which probably alienates him from his fellow
Frenchmen, although in fairness they all speak English too) who learns
that his real father is badass Middle Eastern Baron Godfrey (Liam
“Venerable Jedi” Neeson) and that he’s the heir to a dusty, rock-strewn
castle in the Holy Land. One thing leads to another, and before you know
it he’s conversing with the Leper King Baldwin IV (Ed Norton), bedding a
married princess (Eva Green), fighting duels with strangers (stuntmen),
lecturing people about the equality of man, and ultimately defending
Jerusalem from an invading army of Muslims (Dr. Bashir, others) who are
none too happy about having these nutball religious fanatics from the
West fucking with them all the time. Man, they kept busy then.
It’s
a patently ridiculous tale, loosely based on real history, but it sort
of works because Scott plays it so seriously. There’s no winking
postmodernism here, no levity to let us know that Scott doesn’t really
expect us to buy its old-fashion moralizing and courtly intrigue.
Instead, Orlando Bloom scowls, monologues, and hacks his way through the
barbaric, brutal world of religious zealotry and political machinations
that he encounters in his journey, reserving barbed quips only for the
enemies of freedom, equality, and peace that he must inevitably defeat
first verbally, and then through violence.
The
movie’s obvious analogy to today’s religious conflicts is pretty overt,
and in fact Scott and writer William Monahan (THE DEPARTED, BODY OF
LIES) do probably go too far in trying to convert this alien world of
savage survivalism to something which would resonate with modern
viewers. For every murderous tyrannical maniac, it seems like there are
five enlightened men of wisdom who would probably today be branded as
radical leftists on Fox. It’s a little hard to believe, but Scott
counters that he tweaked the film’s values towards modern perspectives
in an effort to allow modern audiences to understand the dynamics of the
characters and the way they would be perceived at the time. Fair
enough, I’ll grant it works on that level. I must say, though, that the
whole message is delivered so eagerly and so bluntly that it dulls the
effect and makes the whole enterprise seem like a whole lot of
unnecessary effort to deliver a pretty obvious and superficial message
about how we ought to all just get along.
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| Oh no, it's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future. |
Fortunately,
the film has more going for it than its subtext. At its best, it evokes
STAR WARS and Scott’s own BLADE RUNNER in its immersive introduction to
a living, breathing, completely alien world. The camera delights in
tackling grand vistas of 12th century Jerusalem, which Scott presents
(in contrast to dismal, dirt-farming Europe) as a thriving, modern city
full of a diverse cast of exotic locals. It’s all background to the
pretty aristocratic types that guide the film’s story, of course -- but
if you’re gonna be a colorful background peasant, you might as well have
Ridley Scott shooting you because he’s gonna make that shit look good.
It’s a little bit of a shame that the story is so focused on the
machinations of power, since the world is obviously developed enough
that we could have some fun exploring its ins and out -- but that’s not
what Scott is up to here, and even if we can’t play in his world the way
we might want, at least we can appreciate a unique backdrop for the
action. And even if the film can get talky and verge on melodrama at
times, there’s a vitality and a brutality to the environment that keeps
things from getting too murky. The tenuous nature of any peace hangs in
the air at all times. Characters who seem likely to become integral to
the plot can die violent, random deaths at any time. As stilted and
revised a history as this may be, it succeeds in capturing a very
Hobbesian kind of logic. Life here is, indeed, nasty, brutish, and often
short, and indeed, the only way to keep any veneer of civility is
through fastidiously cultivated overwhelming power.
That
dynamic, combined with its unusual locale and old-fashioned aspirations
enhanced with cutting-edge filmmaking, makes for a unique and
worthwhile experience. I’ve heard words like “masterpiece” bandied
around discussing this cut, and that seems a bit hyperbolic to me. It’s a
bit plodding, a bit pandering, a bit ridiculous for the level of
seriousness it’s trying to sustain. And although Bloom works his ass off
and definitely pulls his weight, I must admit that he may not quite
have the overwhelming charisma necessary to anchor something like this.
Still, it’s an enjoyable and immersive effort which is never less than
highly watchable. At the very least, it deserves the second chance it
got to work it’s clumsy but undeniable charm on those filmgoers who have
an attention span longer than a skittles commercial. The battle between
us and the Tom Rothmans of the world is something of a holy war in
itself, and this cut of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN represents a real, if modest,
win. But capturing Jerusalem is easy. The hard part is keeping it.
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| Fortunately, this resolved the whole conflict once and for all. |
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