Saturday, May 14, 2005

Movie review: Kingdom of Heaven

This movie confounds me. So many factors that normally would make me hate it. And yet I find myself quite happily saying that I enjoyed it.

Firstly, Orlando Bloom. *sigh* Pretty, isn't he? Looks, charm, and willingness to throw himself into roles where he has to get dirty and wield weapons. One day perhaps, he will become a great actor, but right now...no. That's not to say he's unconvincing, its just that when the time comes to take control or deliver The Great Speech, he's no Russell Crowe. The casting was kind of puzzling. Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons and Edward Norton have small roles as Godfrey, Tiberius, and King Baldwin IV respectively. Small roles. For the larger roles, Brendan Gleeson and Marton Csokas were cast. Was this to keep the budget down? That's not to say these actors were bad and they're not complete unknowns (at least, not to me), but it seems strange. Especially since an unrecognisable Ed Norton gives the best performance in the movie based only on voice and gesture. David Thewlis as the Hospitaller and Ghassan Massoud as Saladdin are also standouts.

Historical inaccuracies. These normally really get my goat. Orlando Bloom is tranformed from being a blacksmith into a knight after one sword lesson and a repentant father. He also discovers an understanding of military strategy, land management, ballistics and warfare, and the ability to move comfortably with royalty. Amazing!

One of THE most useless romance plots and one of THE most perfunctory love scenes ever. Eva Green has publicly stated that she's disappointed that the love scene was majorly cut. I agree. I think it went for 5 seconds and consisted pretty much of them kissing and lying down. That was it.

Now, the battle scenes. I've heard a bit of complaint (from males) that they were expecting far more fighting, especially since the movie goes for 2.5 hours. While I love a good fight scene as much as the next person, I believe the level of warfare in the movie was fine. There were quite a few bodies struck by arrows, spurting blood, throats cuts etc. And the first rule to fightings knights is to take out the horse. I'm not advocating cruelty to acting horses, but this was done many times so in this case, thumbs up for historical accuracy.

This movie could have easily become another Troy (now that's a movie that made me want 2 - 3 hours of my life back!). Kingdom of Heaven was obviously shooting for *Epic* label but falls short. Despite its many obvious flaws, I'm quite satisfied. Unlike other Dumb Movies that long to be Smart (Pearl Harbor, I'm looking at you), while it was obvious, I didn't find the message it wanted to deliver overly heavy-handed, possibly a reason why I enjoyed it.

I don't know if anyone else picked this up, but there were two things in particular I found quite amusing.
1. Orlando is being taught to fight by Liam Neeson, the Hospitaller (I think) says Liam should go easy because Orlando has an injured hand. In reply, Liam says he fought for two days with an arrow in his testicle to which the Hospitaller reacts in a sort of *yeah, I've heard this story before* kind of manner.
2. In the exchange between Marton and Liam, there are references to Liam/Godfrey being promiscuous. Later, Eva says to Orlando something like *I loved your father and I'm sure I'll love you*. Okay...

Rating - 3.5 out of 5. Cry-o-meter - 0

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