IvanF's Cut and Paste, No-Name Theatrical Review of Kingdom of Heaven 2005...

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Alien sucked. Blade Runner really sucked. And Black Hawk Down kinda sucked as well...

And yes, I've always been the biggest fan of motion picture epics that I've ever doth known...

Troy sucked. Alexander obviously sucked. And the Lord of the Rings trilogy can kiss my ass for all I care....

I've been watching epic film after epic film since then, just trying to rekindle that feeling I got while watching Gladiator for the first and second times... But every film has failed me... King Arthur and Last Samurai certainly had their moments (especially the latter), but they just weren't Gladiator...

Kingdom of Heaven was my last damn chance to taste once again the kingdom of heaven... when it comes to motion movie quality, I mean...

Ridley Scott directed the film. And regardless of whether I believe he's ever done a good movie or not besides Gladiator in his lifetime, I still had faith that his vision could be faithfully recreated in his new film...

But there were a lot of things going against this epic from ever becoming legendary in the history of movie making...

Ridley Scott complained that over 40 minutes of the footage he wanted to keep was cut, just to make the film seem more summer blockbuster like in length... All the early reviews started to trickle in, claiming the film was alright, but just not the film that they were hoping for... And then I realized that fucking Orlando Bloom was in the film. I hated him in Lord of the Rings, and he was just god-awful in Troy and whatever other epic films he Jude Law'ed his way into... But I did enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean. And I was hoping that the little Legolas that could, wouldn't fuck things up here...

The problem is, the sum of all the fears that I had for this film eventually did come to fruition... Let the record state, that while Kingdom of Heaven is still absolutely the best epic film since The Last Samurai, it just doesn't come close to the quality and epicness that that film and Gladiator both seemed to have...

Kingdom of Heaven definitely felt rushed. It feels weird to write though, that a film spanning two hours and a half felt short, but it's damn true and everyone who watches the film will damn well know it right off the bat... Orlando Bloom's introduction was so undeniably torn into pieces, that it almost felt like the movie trailers went more into the depth of his character than the film did...

I mean literally, this was the entire start of the movie - Liam Neeson shows up, says some fatherly words to Orlando Bloom... Bloom then kills a priest for literally no good reason but a good beheading, and then follows Neeson into the woods to repent his sins... That about sums up everything we learn about our little Legolas blacksmith. And the editing was just so subverted and choppy throughout all this, that it really felt like the entire damn film was introduced in less than five bloody minutes...

The love romance was just absolutely atrocious in the film. I mean seriously, this is how it all went... Minute one - Orlando Bloom meets the sister of King Edward Norton. Minute two - she makes up some half assed reason to visit him on his land... Minute three - they end up in bed together... Minute three and five seconds - they're done smoking cigars in bed... And minute four - their romance is all forgotten until about an hour and a half later in the damn film...

I mean, wow... can you feel the love tonight?... you'd think a guy could last at least five minutes, you know?...

The casting in Kingdom of Heaven did partially make up for the horrible pacing and editing in the film... Orlando Bloom wasn't the huge mistake that I was fearing that he was, but his character definitely was (more on that later)... Still, I was actually satisfied with his portrayal of Lord Balian. Sure, it never made sense how he could master the high guard stance in just under three minutes, but the actor helped make it feel convincing enough... Legolas has always had that naive, boy-like feel to him, and I think it worked well in Jerusalem. He was just a young explorer in a completely foreign land and environment, and Orlando Bloom's usual cluelessness actually worked wonders in that way...

Liam Neeson played Qui Gon Godfrey, teaching Orlando Bloom about how to wield a light saber, warning him about the light and dark sides of the Crusades, and popping up now and again in voice over narratives after his death, screaming "No, Anakin!" at the camera... But in all seriousness, the film probably needed a lot more Liam Neeson if it wanted to feel epic. For all the short and brief scenes that he was in, Neeson was the man. Godfrey was absolutely the best character in the film, being both remorseful over his bastard son, and wise enough after years of battle to know the value of peace... It kinda sucked that the best scene in the entire film, the knighting of Balian, was given away by the trailers. But even so, Liam deserves all the credit in the world for making that scene what it was, and then bitch-slapping me to make sure that I remembered it...

I just wish the rest of the Christian characters in the film weren't such caricatures, you know?...

Eva Green not only looked paleish and ugly in the film, but she acted the same way as well. Sibylla's only decent scene was when she gave the "greater good" speech to pretty-boy Legolas. But for everything else, she just plain sucked... She tried to be flirtatious, but just came off as a whore. She tried to look concerned about the people of the city when she cut her hair, but she instead just looked like an alien from War of the Worlds... And hell, her sex scene with Legolas lasted only five damn seconds! Or less than that, actually... Even Troy got two thumbs up from me, from having Rose Byrne show off her breasts in bed for a minute or two... So why the fuck were we reduced to mere politics with Eva Green, in a world full of ugly and one-dimensional men?...

Renard and Guy de Lusignon were just completely worthless villains. They were completely one-dimensional, simply there to give the film a clear distinction between good Christians and religious fanatics... Renard's lines were literally all in the trailer, as all the guy ever did was nod to orders to "give me war", and then get his head chopped off... Brendan Gleeson's one decent scene, was when he was forced to kiss the hand of the leper King. He kinda went overboard with that moment, but at least he actually had a moment... Guy de Lisgnon did not... I mean, is this guy a complete moron or what? He leads all his troops far into the desert, where they all die of vultures pecking at their dicks before they ever get to the battle itself... He was a religious fanatic, who knew nothing of war. And while some of the Crusaders in the past were certainly like this guy, why did Ridley Scott leave a complete idiotic like him in the film, when he went overboard with the holy goodness of everybody else?... the overglaring contrast just didn't work...

Tiberias and King Baldwin were probably the only two characters that had any depth left to them in the film, thanks to politics (more on that later...)... Tiberias was an intelligent man, with a nice and lovely scar down his face. And King Baldwin? The leper thing make him stand out far more than he would've just for his personality... But either way, Edward Norton did a good job, of playing a dying man repentful of his sins of vanity... Their real moment to shine, was when Tiberias and Adam Baldwin contrasted so damn darkly with pretty-boy Legolas, about killing Gui de Lusignon to make sure the bastard never made it to the throne. Because unlike pretty much every other character in the film, Tiberias and Baldwin actually had both light and dark sides of the force in them, like real people in the past did... or at least, like every character in a film should probably have these days...

Even without anybody ever seeing this film (if its box-office sales are to be believed), Kingdom of Heaven has already become one of the most controversial films of the entire year... It deals with the Crusades, so obviously you have the anti-Americanites out there all blaming the movie for inciting hate against Muslims. And then you have the anti-anti-Americanites all screaming back, that the Muslims weren't all so good and holy during the Crusades as modern revisions of history would like one to believe...

To avoid inflaming both Christians and Muslims alike, Ridley Scott lost all of his backbone, and made a film about perfect characters on both sides, forced into conflict by the two or three idiot caricatures that should've been killed a long time ago, if any of the holy characters knew what was smart to do...

Godfrey and Orlando Bloom's Balian were just so fucking 'good guys', that it grated on the nerves. They were everything that a knight was meant to be - always telling the truth, never sinning, and protecting the helpless. As far as the film depicted, they were "perfect knights"... Perfect beings are just not real though, not now and certainly not back during the Dark Ages. And even if by some chance revision of history, some real knights back during the Crusades were really this damn friendly and tolerant of all peoples and religions, it still doesn't make for good movie entertainment...

The Muslim side was just as arrogantly 'perfect', however... Saladin got his sister beheaded and maybe even raped as well. And this was after two of his armed caravans were surprised and slaughtered... And yet when he finally takes Jerusalem, he somehow respects Balian so much, that he nods that awful "nothing... Everything" line with a smile to him? And then sets back up a fallen cross out of reverence for the late King Baldwin? It just didn't sit right... And Dr. Julian Bashir playing Saladin's right hand man, Nasir? First of all, it's kinda sad when the only comic relief I got from the film, was imagining the Muslim lord beaming back to Deep Space 9... And second, Bashir of Nasir was just too 'good' of a person... Sure, it makes sense that Balian earned his respect, both with that sword fight at the start, and with the freeing of the slaves bit. But c'mon already, with Saladin having to be a perfect gentleman thanks to modern politics, couldn't Ridley Scott at least have written in a 'bad' Muslim to offset their army's overwhelming pureness? Sure, there was that one scene with that one semi-evil Muslim in the foreground, but that was about it...

For the most part... for nothing, and everything... We had two perfect Christians on one side, and two perfect Muslims on the other side...

It just didn't feel like a good movie in that sense... let alone a great epic...

... as, well... I might as well mention the only thing that truly matters in repeat viewers of an epic film...

As yes, even though they were chopped into edited hell, I was quite satisfied with the battles for what they were worth...

The Christian versus Christian battles were the best of the show, for obvious political reasons... After Legolas kills the priest for absolutely no good reason whatsoever, the local army tries to take him back. As a result, we got a shower of arrows through the throat, and probably the only great swordplay of the entire film... Later on, when Legolas in contemplating his own, wholesome-good-boy stupidity of not taking the throne through evil means, Guy sends five or so idiots to try to kill Bloom with maces instead of sniper arrows... Once again, we got some good violence in there, with swords through helmets as if they were butter... Those were the two satisfying battles in the film, as short as they were...

The siege of Jerusalem was mostly well done. It was just that, it was cut so damn short, and almost felt too damn G-rated, as if not to offend the Muslims of the world out there with all the carnage... You'll know it when you see it - the final battle, with hundreds of swords clashing, is covered over by convenient fog of war and muffled sounds you'd expect only from a crappy Saving Private Ryan WW2 clone... That part was definitely a disappointment, but the siege itself was not... The catapults in Kingdom of Heaven were probably the best done catapults since I first watched Gladiator in true DTS sound. The impacts against the walls of Jerusalem were extremely well done. And the siege tower moments outshined every single comparable scene in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, even if some would boldly claim that Kingdom of Heaven somehow ripped off LOTR (as if siege towers never existed in reality...)... Either way, all I do know, is that watching the Dark Age joy of pouring tar, lighting some fires, and slamming down towers with roped ballistae, really made this film worth the price of admission alone... well, almost...

Ridley Scott really knew what he was doing with the film, I know he did... Some of the landscapes and camera angles he chose are truly breath-taking at times. And the musical score, while lacking the impact that Gladiator's had, was still one of the best epic scores to come out of any film as of late... And yes, oh yes, Liam Neeson kicked Jedi ass every single time he was on screen...

... poor Scott's hands were tied... his film's length was butchered, to the point where almost every single scene felt at least one minute too short...

And goddam modern politics ensured that we could never have a truly epic film...

What I mean is, Ridley Scott realized with Gladiator that epics really aren't all about the battles, or the music score, or even just the coolness factor of living out the most epic moments of the past...

... and as sad as it is to say, modern controversy will never, ever allow a true epic film to be ever justly made, with both Christians and Muslims alike at least...