Swords clashing as religious sects from both Christianity and Islam fight for power over the Holy Land, each claiming they are acting based on their faith. This is precisely what Kingdom of Heaven deals with and by mere chance I happened to stumble across Kingdom of Heaven on BBC America, so I was able to use the amazing technology of a DVR to be able to sit down and watch this movie at my own leisure. Kingdom of Heaven is simply one of those movie that one must go into just simply wanting to sit back and watch, especially those if you are a fan of the movies that take place during the middle ages. Kingdom of Heaven gives us the story of Balian, a blacksmith, who learns his father is actually a Crusader, and is invited to come back on the journey back to the Holy Land with him. Balian amid the pageantry and intrigues of Medieval Jerusalem, he falls in love, grows into a leader and ultimately uses all his courage and skill to defend the city and the people against seemingly insurmountable odds. Ridley Scott tells the story of Kingdom of Heaven with a grittiness that is rarely seen in the Crusade movies simply because most of the stories are fairly romanticized pertaining to why the Christians were actually shipping out on these Crusades to the Holy Land.
Orlando Bloom stars in the role of Balian and he really surprised me and exceeded the expectations I had for his performance. For some reason I find Bloom in these roles that deal with the different periods of time to be ones that seem to fit him perfectly. Bloom is able to make his character be one that the audience can care for. Unfortunately we get all of his character development within the first quarter of the movie and then from there his character becomes the knight/hero. Eva Green in the role of Queen Sibylla is one that was under utilized, yet she takes advantage of the moments when she is on screen because she draws attention to her. While she plays in part the love interest to Balian, this is under played and a little more of her on screen may have helped the movie to be stronger. Liam Neeson in a fairly small role of Godfrey, our Crusader who has come to let his existence be known to his son. Neeson in the role of the spiritual mentor to the hero for some reason he has a great ability to be able to play this role perfectly, and he is able to only build hero factor of Balian. The rest of the supporting cast give strong performances and he use of a lot of actual Arab actors helped give great credibility to the Saracen side of the Crusades.
The story of Kingdom of Heaven is very straight forward and is one that can be categorized into three acts. The first act deals with Balian learning his identity and from there starts the journey to finding who he truly his. From there we are taken into the second act which deals with the religion and politics of the time. While normally this may seem disconnected to the first act it is the way though that the way the politics and religion is ran and done in Jerusalem that only further entrenched Balian into what true knighthood was during the middle ages. All of the politics and religion leads to the third act of the battles and siege of Jerusalem. The third act ends up being exactly what everyone that loves these epic adventure movie expects from the battle part of a story. The three act part really worked well and made the story flow well and really helped to make the main message be one that I really liked that in the end what matters is what is truly in your head and your heart and that noble actions speak louder then mere empty and repetitive "praise the Lord" chats.
The battle sequences are great and necessary for an epic genre movie like Kingdom of Heaven. The pan-out shots and general landscape sweeps are mind blowing and even on my smaller then theater screen TV they still had an awe inspiring feel to them, that will leave you wanting more. The huge battle scenes in Kingdom of Heaven are epic in grandeur and to me were fairly reminiscent and to the same scale of the siege on Helm's Deep and Mirnas Tirith from The Lord of the Rings films. I mean for me there were a couple of moments where I was half expecting Bloom to magically pull out a bow and start cutting men down with rapid speed as he fired or even hop on a shield and ride it like a surf board down a set of stairs. The battle scenes though were done really well and are ones that are memorable and will stick in the audiences mind for some time.
Kingdom of Heaven is one of those movies that is truly an epic movie. Bloom surprised me and exceeded what I expected from him and I felt there were a couple moments where I was a blond wig, pointy ears and a bow away from him being Legolas in the battle sequences. I found myself greatly enjoying just sitting back and watching everything unfold on the screen. On a side note an interesting part with Kingdom of Heaven that intrigued me was that of Saladin, I found myself wanting to research him and learn more about who he really was and how true to actual person was the role that was portrayed on film. I am giving Kingdom of Heaven three and a quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. This is a movie that anyone that enjoys knights, swords and the middle ages or Crusades should kick up their feet and eat a bag of popcorn while enjoying this movie.
-The Movie Man
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