"A kingdom of conscience, or nothing."
Hello everyone!
I will apologise in advance if I seem to ramble in some parts of this review. Unfortunately, I seem to be coming down with the flu, or at the very least a deathly cold, becaus I keep getting these hot/cold flashes (not Katy Perry approved) and I feel super weak like someone shoved Kryptonite close to Supergirl.
Seriously.
It may just be a cold, and I'm doing everything I can to battle this, but I can definitely feel my body is struggling against something, so, again, I apologise.
Also, I apologise for this sudden influx of old history movies!
Well okay, old is a subjective term, but over ten years is pretty old for a movie, right? Right.
The thing is, one of our channels here decided to air these goldies, and I'm enough of a movie geek that I want to rewatch them all. And review.
So let's begin with Kingdom of Heaven.
Okay, so.
Yes, the movie is entirely historically accurate. I understand that - and truth be told I would have been incredibly surprised if it had been. History has this thing with being a heck of a lot crueler than anything any movie director can come up with.
That being said, there's no reason NOT to enjoy THIS version of history.
Especially if it has Orlando Bloom in it, among others.
I will cheerfullyadmit that he leaves me cold in his role as Legolas, whereas in his more natural state of dark hair-dark eyes, I could be interested.
It's probably why I have no trouble looking at him in this movie.
But let's begin.
Balian, a blacksmith, has just lost his wife who committed suicide after the death of their child (so technically he lost her AND the child) and is generally annoyed to no end by one Michael Sheen who seems to think that the village doesn't need a blacksmith since he's urging Balian to go elsewhere.
This will eventually lead to him becoming a human torch, but more about that in a minute.
Liam Neeson graces our screen first as he comes seeking his son, the same Balian. Godfrey of Ibelin is on his way to Jerusalem, or back to Jerusalem I should say, and wants Balian with him.
Originally, Balian says no, then changes his mind after making Sheen into previously-mentioned human torch, hastening after his father (whom, it must be added, he never met before). Hot on his heels is the Kingslayer himself, Jamie Lannister, not that he knows that's his name yet, who is foolish enough to engage in battle with knights who serve the king in Jerusalem ... you see where this is going.
Unfortunately, Godfrey manages to take an arrow to the side, followed by an infection, and dies before reaching the Holy Land, though prior to this he imparts several knight and life-lessons on his son, as well as confers the rank of Lord to him, and knights him.
Leaving behind all he knew - including one Marton Csokas in his role as Guy de Lusignan, equally different from his Celeborn shiny outlook with black hair and beard this time - Balian sails from Messina and ends up in a shipwreck, the lone survivor if you don't count a black horse that gallops away as soon as he frees it.
He regains control of the horse, only to have to fight a Saracen knight for possession, finally making it to Jerusalem where he pleads forgivenes for his wife's suicide and catches the attention of Godfrey's people, who whisk him off to Ibelin, though not before he encounters Sybilla, sister to the king and, conveniently, wife to Guy. As if that isn't enough, having been introduced to Tiberias, keeper of the peace in Jerusalem (although Jeremy Irons constantly just looks cranky), Balian manages to snag an audience with the king himself. The unfortunate monarch, who is a leper, currently holds an uneven peace with Saladin between Muslims and Christians, a peace that Templar Knights (under command from Guy and his sidekick, Reynaud) keep trying to upset; he asks Balian to claim his father's land and protect the pilgrim road there.
Balian does as he's told (and more, since Sybilla has this thing for young, handsome lords) and digs for water in Ibelin to make it prosper when Reynaud and Guy once again attack the Saracens, unprovoked, causing Saladin to move his army and march it to Kerak.
The king orders Balian to protect the fleeing people, even though he is clearly outnumbered just by the Saracen cavalry, but leading the cavalry is the "slave" of the Saracen knight he killed back in the beginning, who turns out to actually be the knight in question, and he spares the lot of them because he's noble like that.
Saladin and the king meet in the field and a potential disaster is averted - though the king is sufficiently weakened by this excursion and dying. He wants to leave his kingdom in better hands than Guy's, offering his sister to Balian (as well as the army) to ensure peace is kept. Balian being who he is, however, and actually as close to a perfect knight as can be, refuses, which, upon the king's death, means Guy is crowned and immediately declares war on Saladin by having the Muslim ruler's sister murdered.
He also tries to kill Balian, but Legolas is a tough nut to crack, and he tries to dissuade the Jerusalem lords from marching the army out of the city, citing they cannot move away from water, not that it helps; Guy is an idiot and gets everyone killed.
Tiberias decides enough is enough and heads for Cyprus, but Balian refuses, citing the need to protect the people (as both his deceased father and king commanded) as reason for staying.
Thus we come to the last stand of Jerusalem in Christian hands as Balian squares off with Saladin, managing to thwart everything the Muslim leader throws at the walls and its defenders. You can totally see he's impressed, and horror-struck, that he's led so many of his people to their deaths.
Eventually, as Balian planned, Saladin calls for a cease-fire and invites Balian to have a chat.
The two men eventually agree that Jerusalem will surrender, with Saladin guaranteeing safe passage to the sea to any and all Christians within the city (and indeed, when we next see the man, he proves his greatness by replacing a golden cross where it used to stand, as opposed to throwing it out, depicting that he's more than just a blood-thirsty warlord).
Balian reunites with Sybilla, who had thrown away her rank (and her hair while nursing the injured) and who returns to Europe with him. When Richard the Lionheart comes seeking the defender of Jerusalem, Balian kindly points him on the way but maintains that he is a simple blacksmith.
And to borrow from the movie's epitaph: even today, peace in the Kingdom of Heaven remains elusive.
While perhaps not historically accurate, the movie is romantic enough to draw viewers in, and despite all the battle sequences and the blood, it's one I usually sit down to watch if I see it airing on television. It's not about the historical inaccuracies so much as it is about the general message it's trying to convey: that,a s dreamed by big people, there CAN be peace even between two religions that always seem to be at war. Indeed, as voiced by Orlando Bloom himself in the movie, there are many similarities in faith.
Maybe it's this that makes the movie viewable even today, more than ten years after its first release.
And perhaps, someday, Kingdom of Heaven won't be just a movie, either.
xx
*images and video not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment