The Crusades have lost their old glow of moral rightness, but not their unique sense of high adventure. We may put the name "crusading" to either a fanatic or a hero, but never to a stick-in-the-mud. For good or ill, a Crusader plays for high stakes.
The Kingdom of Heaven concerns one Crusader, Balion of Ibelin, who comes to the Holy Land seeking forgiveness for his sins, and those of his lost wife. Once in Jerusalem, he encounters a delicately balanced political situation. Baldwin of Jerusalem, the pious, leprous Crusader king, and his loyal marshal Tiberias, seek to keep peace with their Muslim neighbors while keeping control of their hard-won holy cities. Another Christian faction, led by the Templars Guy of Lusignan and Reynald of Chatillon, motivated by both religious zeal and simple greed, seek war with the Muslims. Looming over both factions is Saladin, the formidable Muslim sultan of Egypt and Syria. The dying King Baldwin walks the tightrope between Saladin and the Templars for as long as he can, but he cannot keep it up forever, and when he fails the consequences will be tragic.
Despite some deep flaws, Kingdom of Heaven is worth watching. First, it approximates the historical facts pretty closely. Balion, Guy, Reynald, Baldwin, Saladin, and Baldwin's sister Sibylla all really existed, and their behavior roughly resembles that of their historical counterparts.
Edward Norton's performance as King Baldwin is magnificent. He is denied the most versatile tool of the actor, his face, spending the entire movie with his leprosy-ravaged features concealed behind a steel mask. Yet he still conveys a fine leader who embodies all the best aspects of the Christianity of his era, and very few of the worst. In Baldwin's Christianity appears the simple, patient faith that enabled him, and many less exalted than he, to bear burdens of pain and degradation that most of us in the modern age cannot even imagine, without becoming sour or embittered. The ever-presence of physical weakness, discomfort, and imminent death strengthens his moral standards, where many in the modern era would use them as excuses for doing wrong. Baldwin is really the heart of the movie, and one of Kingdom of Heaven's chief problems is that it takes too long to get him on stage, and loses its moral center when he exits. Balion, the ostensible main character, is nowhere near as interesting.
Like most Ridley Scott movies, Kingdom of Heaven has a lot of visual impact. The colors are beautiful and rich, with the magnificent reds and yellows of the Crusader states contrasting vividly with the somber blues and greens of Balion's native France. The battle scenes have a great sense of scope and spectacle. In the post-Saving Private Ryan movie world, one may legitimately question Scott's decision to make the battles spectacular rather than horrific; the emphasis is always on the action, never on the agonizing and tragic consequences. But, question the worthiness of Scott's objectives all you want, the fact remains that he achieved the grandeur he was aiming for. Less defensible is the choppiness of Scott's close combat scenes, which often end up looking like an R-rated network war game on the verge of lagging.
The visual display, sweep of history, and compelling story of Baldwin make up for a number of sins. The beginning and end of the story are vacuous, amounting to little more than a thin frame for the battle scenes. The final act centering around the siege of Jerusalem, fails dramatically (though not visually) for two reasons. First, Balion's decision to defend the city to save the lives of the inhabitants is logically absurd. By his age's rules of warfare, a surrendering city's population was to be spared, while populations that resisted were to be slaughtered, and so Balion's defense of the city endangers the people's lives, rather than saving them. Second is Balion's speech to his troops justifying their battle against the Muslims. It is a good speech, eminently reasonable, but also an absurd anachronism. Balion's arguments are clearly aimed at our age, not his own, knocking down doubts about the rightness of denying Muslims access to a city that was once Muslim. We today have such doubts; hardly any 12th-century Christian would have even considered the question of right and justice for the "infidels." Even granting that Balion is a rare exception, he would never have voiced his thoughts publicly in this way.
The final production also shows signs of timidity. In a movie that spends so much time on intimate, gory details of every minor skirmish, and whose central story is of how Christianity lost Jerusalem to Muslim rule, what reason can there be for not showing the battle of the Horns of Hattin? Saladin is one of the central characters of the movie, yet his outstanding military achievement is hustled off screen, hinted at but never displayed. And yet the entire premise of the movie depends on this single battle. This choice gives rise to the ugly suspicion that the producers were simply afraid to present Western audiences in this age of the "Global War on Terror" a picture of Muslims winning a decisive battle against Christians, and the historical facts be damned.
The man who directed this movie also directed Gladiator. Gladiator is much superior, featuring a much more interesting hero and villain, and even more effective and brutal scenes of battle. If you only see one of Scott's period pieces, by all means see Gladiator. But, despite all its imperfections, Kingdom of Heaven is a worthy effort.
Rating: **½ Recommendation: Historical epic fans should rent it off the new release shelf; others wait for TV.
The Kingdom of Heaven concerns one Crusader, Balion of Ibelin, who comes to the Holy Land seeking forgiveness for his sins, and those of his lost wife. Once in Jerusalem, he encounters a delicately balanced political situation. Baldwin of Jerusalem, the pious, leprous Crusader king, and his loyal marshal Tiberias, seek to keep peace with their Muslim neighbors while keeping control of their hard-won holy cities. Another Christian faction, led by the Templars Guy of Lusignan and Reynald of Chatillon, motivated by both religious zeal and simple greed, seek war with the Muslims. Looming over both factions is Saladin, the formidable Muslim sultan of Egypt and Syria. The dying King Baldwin walks the tightrope between Saladin and the Templars for as long as he can, but he cannot keep it up forever, and when he fails the consequences will be tragic.
Despite some deep flaws, Kingdom of Heaven is worth watching. First, it approximates the historical facts pretty closely. Balion, Guy, Reynald, Baldwin, Saladin, and Baldwin's sister Sibylla all really existed, and their behavior roughly resembles that of their historical counterparts.
Edward Norton's performance as King Baldwin is magnificent. He is denied the most versatile tool of the actor, his face, spending the entire movie with his leprosy-ravaged features concealed behind a steel mask. Yet he still conveys a fine leader who embodies all the best aspects of the Christianity of his era, and very few of the worst. In Baldwin's Christianity appears the simple, patient faith that enabled him, and many less exalted than he, to bear burdens of pain and degradation that most of us in the modern age cannot even imagine, without becoming sour or embittered. The ever-presence of physical weakness, discomfort, and imminent death strengthens his moral standards, where many in the modern era would use them as excuses for doing wrong. Baldwin is really the heart of the movie, and one of Kingdom of Heaven's chief problems is that it takes too long to get him on stage, and loses its moral center when he exits. Balion, the ostensible main character, is nowhere near as interesting.
Like most Ridley Scott movies, Kingdom of Heaven has a lot of visual impact. The colors are beautiful and rich, with the magnificent reds and yellows of the Crusader states contrasting vividly with the somber blues and greens of Balion's native France. The battle scenes have a great sense of scope and spectacle. In the post-Saving Private Ryan movie world, one may legitimately question Scott's decision to make the battles spectacular rather than horrific; the emphasis is always on the action, never on the agonizing and tragic consequences. But, question the worthiness of Scott's objectives all you want, the fact remains that he achieved the grandeur he was aiming for. Less defensible is the choppiness of Scott's close combat scenes, which often end up looking like an R-rated network war game on the verge of lagging.
The visual display, sweep of history, and compelling story of Baldwin make up for a number of sins. The beginning and end of the story are vacuous, amounting to little more than a thin frame for the battle scenes. The final act centering around the siege of Jerusalem, fails dramatically (though not visually) for two reasons. First, Balion's decision to defend the city to save the lives of the inhabitants is logically absurd. By his age's rules of warfare, a surrendering city's population was to be spared, while populations that resisted were to be slaughtered, and so Balion's defense of the city endangers the people's lives, rather than saving them. Second is Balion's speech to his troops justifying their battle against the Muslims. It is a good speech, eminently reasonable, but also an absurd anachronism. Balion's arguments are clearly aimed at our age, not his own, knocking down doubts about the rightness of denying Muslims access to a city that was once Muslim. We today have such doubts; hardly any 12th-century Christian would have even considered the question of right and justice for the "infidels." Even granting that Balion is a rare exception, he would never have voiced his thoughts publicly in this way.
The final production also shows signs of timidity. In a movie that spends so much time on intimate, gory details of every minor skirmish, and whose central story is of how Christianity lost Jerusalem to Muslim rule, what reason can there be for not showing the battle of the Horns of Hattin? Saladin is one of the central characters of the movie, yet his outstanding military achievement is hustled off screen, hinted at but never displayed. And yet the entire premise of the movie depends on this single battle. This choice gives rise to the ugly suspicion that the producers were simply afraid to present Western audiences in this age of the "Global War on Terror" a picture of Muslims winning a decisive battle against Christians, and the historical facts be damned.
The man who directed this movie also directed Gladiator. Gladiator is much superior, featuring a much more interesting hero and villain, and even more effective and brutal scenes of battle. If you only see one of Scott's period pieces, by all means see Gladiator. But, despite all its imperfections, Kingdom of Heaven is a worthy effort.
Rating: **½ Recommendation: Historical epic fans should rent it off the new release shelf; others wait for TV.