Kingdom Of Heaven

By Simon Woodhouse

For me, good acting requires the thespian involved to display a whole range of subtle emotions, each one appropriate to the scene they're in. Staring manfully toward a point far off on the horizon doesn't fall into this category. In fact, any sort of vacant, blank expression strikes me as not really being acting at all, in the same way that silence isn't music.

Historical epics, be they from the genres 1950/60s heyday, or part of the more recent batch, seem to have a lot of this sort of 'acting'. Perhaps it comes from the whole 'actions speak louder than words' thing, because historical epics certainly have more than their fair share of fighting/chasing/running scenes. However, there has to be something in between the fighting and chasing and running, otherwise it's very difficult to feel any empathy with what's happening on screen.

In Kingdom Of Heaven, Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a poor French blacksmith. When we first meet him, he's in a bit of a state. His wife and child have just died, an event that's seriously testing his faith. But as luck would have it, a famous knight, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), rides into town and promptly informs Balian he's his real father. The young man then decides to throw his lot in with Godfrey, and follows dear all dad back to the Holy Land, where he's been fighting in the crusades for the last few years. During this trip, Balian is given a crash course in sword fighting. I always imagined becoming really proficient with this sort of weapon took a lifetime of training. However, that's not the case in Hollywood movie land. After ten minutes practice Balian is wielding a sword like a pro, and is easily as skilled as Godfrey's battle-hardened crew.

This example of playing fast and loose with reality sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Before the first third is over, Balian has gone from poor blacksmith to commander-in-chief of his dad's forces, and the movie makers have set him up as the saviour of the Holy Land. I realise watching certain films requires a suspension of disbelief, but that ethos usually applies to sci-fi or fantasy movies. When a film based on actual events presents its main characters in such an unbelievable way, it's difficult not to wonder what else has been exaggerated or ignored.

Anyway, the film roles on and Balian arrives in the Holy Land, becomes a knight and takes control of his dad's forces. All this takes place during a period of relative calm, within which the warring Christians and Muslims are observing a fragile truce. Balian then crosses paths with the beautiful Sibylla (Eva Green). Unfortunately she's married to the movie's main baddy, Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas). I guess the idea of Christians versus Muslims is a sensitive subject in today's world, so in light of this, the film makers have made the main baddy a Frenchman. Guy de Lusignan wants the Christian/Muslim conflict to start up again. He's aided in this endeavor by Reynald (Brendan Gleeson), the manic leader of the Knights Templar. Csokas and Gleeson take it in turns to deliver one over the top performance after another, as all baddies must do in every historical epic. But this does make a change from Orlando Bloom's stoic, expressionless performance, which quickly becomes irritating to the extreme.

Inevitably, Balian and Sibylla hook up, which places the young man on a collision course with Guy de Lusignan. But seeing as Balian is a Christian, it's also inevitable he ends up fighting Muslims (after all, this is the crusades). And so the stage is set for what I suspect is the real reason for the film being made - an epic battle involving thousands of CGI 'extras'. Ever since the final Lord of the Rings film showed how massed armies could be brought to life inside a computer, Hollywood seems to have been falling over itself to find a use for this sort of technology. Historical epics provide the perfect backdrop for large-scale conflicts, but there has to be some humanity as well, otherwise it's all style over substance (an expression that sums up Kingdom Of Heaven in a nutshell).

Apart from all those mentioned above, the movie also features Edward Norton as King Baldwin IV, and Jeremy Irons as Tiberias. Both of these characters are good guys, and so look miserable throughout the whole film. Why is it that only the bad guys ever seem to have fun in historical epics? Anyway, neither of them particularly distinguishes themselves here, instead turning in workman-like performances that are instantly forgettable. In fact, instantly forgettable pretty much sums up the movie as a whole. It's neither good nor bad, instead occupying the middle ground where most films go to die.

If you're a fan of this type of movie, you're probably better of watching something like Spartacus (1960). Back then, films contained a bit more grit, and even had characters you actually cared about. Kingdom Of Heaven, on the other hand, contains a whiter than white, flawless good guy, who's so infuriatingly perfect he's almost celestial. But this lofty pinnacle means the character of Balian ranks right up alongside Santa and the Tooth Fairy on the implausibility scale. And because he's so unrealistic, I found it hard to care about what happened to him in the end, something that is also true of everyone else in Kingdom Of Heaven.