I had so much hope for Kingdom of Heaven. I had never seen this film before and had not heard anything about it. I purposefully didn't look at reviews or ratings before watching. I went in with such high hopes for a number of reasons.
1: The film was directed by Ridley Scott. The man behind American Gangster, Blackhawk Down, Alien, Blade Runner, and one of my favorite movies of all time, Gladiator. I tend to enjoy this guys work and think he is a great director.
2: The subject matter. Placing the film in Jerusalem during the Crusades is a great idea. It is a period of time that is often ignored in historical film making. People like films set in the 1700-1800s, or during and before the Roman Empire. These periods often get romanticized. Because of this, the Crusades is a goldmine for great stories. It is a period where the search for land and wealth was rampant and religion was used as an excuse to wage bloody wars that killed countless millions of people. There is so much space for doing thought provoking stories.
3: The cast should be great. Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Edward Norton (I couldn't find him until after the movie ended), Jeremy Irons, and of course Liam Neeson. This cast should have been great.
4: This is a personal reason, but I love historical period films. I give any historical film a shot just because I wish more films would try and do it.
But alas, this film was an utter disappointment. I have a few reasons why.
1: Absolutely no emotional connection. A film-goer's emotional entrance point to a film is through its characters. Characters need to be emotionally relate-able almost from the very beginning. If not the film may loose its audience. People make judgments very quickly and those judgments can sway perception of a whole film. This film did a horrible job creating characters that you had sympathy for. I didn't know if I was supposed to like Orlando Bloom's character for at least 20 minutes. Liam Neeson does a decent job with his character, and I would argue he is the only relate-able character in the entire film. And then there is Eva Green's character. I love Eva Green. She is a wonderful actress and often is the bright spot in some bad movies (Like 300: Rise of an Empire). But her character completely falls flat. You don't understand her motivations. She is confusing. Her and Bloom very quickly fall in love. I didn't even realize they were "in love" until the effectively "broke up". Because these characters fell flat emotionally, the rest of the film suffered. Epic battles where you were supposed to worry for characters didn't mean as much. When something traumatic occurs you don't feel the type of sadness that is supposed to be expressed. The whole film suffered.
2: The story was way to convoluted. There were too many plot lines running through this film. Bloom's search for redemption. Bloom's actual parentage. Bloom's relationship with Green. Bloom's mission to uphold his "father's" values. The political situation between the King of Jerusalem and Saladin. The political infighting between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Knights Templar. Bloom's rivalry with one of the leaders of the Templars/Green's husband. The movie was just all over the place. Bloom's character went from brooding and troubled to noble, charismatic, and "pure" almost instantly. The film was an absolute mess. It had 3 hours to create a coherent story, but instead it jumped all over the place and never felt consistent. Parts felt rushed and other parts felt drawn out. The plot needed to be simplified. Too much was going on at all times and nothing seemed to be the most important part.
3: The film's message was completely lost and blatantly shoved in the viewers face all at the same time. The film tried to tell you that it doesn't matter what you believe, whether you are Christian, Jewish, or a Muslim, and that we can all live together in peace. That we can learn to understand each other and that fighting is pointless. All it results in is death and more death. Nothing good comes of it. The nature of this film made this perfectly clear. The political relationship between Jerusalem and Saladin made this apparent. But the film went out of its way to preach at the viewer. This was off putting because I already got the memo. I didn't need to hear it over and over again. I could see it with my own eyes. It became a little too repetitive. Even though the message was evident, it lost its emotional connection as well and got lost in the mess that was this movie. I didn't care about the characters or their goals or desires or motivations, so I never made an emotional connection with the films message. It was rough.
Story, characters, and emotion are critical to a movies success. This one missed on all marks. Visually it was stunning. The battle scenes looked great. The music was phenomenal. But these things couldn't save this movie. The lack of well crafted characters, a concise linear story, and emotional gravitas took away the potential soul of the movie. It destroyed the potential this movie had to be fun and muddied the message too much. This film had so much potential, but just fell flat on its face. I have read that the Director's Cut was better, so maybe I will seek that out, but man this movie was no good. I give it 3.5/10. I really wish I had liked it.
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