Kingdom of Heaven opens with a man dying in a field and closes with a city burning down. That is the whole shape of the film, and it holds together better than almost anything else in it does.
Trailer, via HD Retro Trailers.
Balian Arrives
Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a blacksmith who leaves his forge to fight in the Holy Land after his father commits suicide. He finds Jerusalem under siege, and the film spends its middle hours teaching him the rules of war, politics and faith. The performance is steady, but the script buries him under too much exposition.
Eva Green plays Sibylla, the queen of Jerusalem, and Liam Neeson plays her uncle Baldwin, the king. Their scenes together carry the film’s emotional weight, even when the dialogue around them stumbles. The chemistry is real, the speeches are not.
Battle and Siege
The battle scenes are where Kingdom of Heaven earns its keep. The cavalry charges, the shield walls, the chaos of men fighting over holy ground — these sequences land with real force. Ridley Scott directs with a sense of scale that few directors of his era could match, and the film’s best hour is built on these set pieces.
But the momentum stalls once the siege ends and the film shifts to diplomacy. Characters talk at each other about God, power and honor, and the talk grows dull fast.
The Final Hour
The final act arrives late and rushes through a war council, a siege and a citywide fire. It is a mess of plot, and the film’s themes — forgiveness, sacrifice, the limits of violence — get lost in the hurry. The ending tries to tie everything together, but it only ties itself in knots.
What Works
- Orlando Bloom carries the early hours with quiet strength
- Eva Green and Liam Neeson anchor the middle with real tension
- The battle scenes are some of the best of the decade
- The final hour is rushed and loses focus
What Doesn’t
- Too much talking about God and power
- The second half drags badly
- The climax feels forced rather than earned
- The story asks the audience to care about a city it barely knows
Kingdom of Heaven is a film of extremes. Its battle scenes are excellent, its talk scenes are tedious, its start is strong and its finish is weak. It is not a failure, but it is not a great film either.
The score sits at 6.3 out of 10, and that number fits the experience. It is a movie worth seeing for its action and its performances, but a movie that asks for patience the longer it runs.
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