Kingdom of Heaven (film)
Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic historical drama film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It features an ensemble cast including Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, and Liam Neeson.
Kingdom of Heaven
Ridley Scott
- Scott Free Productions
- Inside Track
- Studio Babelsberg[1]
- 2 May 2005 (London premiere)
- 5 May 2005 (Germany)
- 6 May 2005 (North America, United Kingdom)
144 minutes[2]
- United Kingdom[3]
- Germany
- United States
- English
- Arabic
- Italian
- Latin
$130 million[4]
$218.1 million[4]
The film is a heavily fictionalised portrayal of the events leading to the Third Crusade, focusing mainly on Balian of Ibelin who fights to defend the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin.
Filming took place in Ouarzazate, Morocco and in Spain, at the Loarre Castle (Huesca), Segovia, Ávila, Palma del Río, and Seville's Casa de Pilatos and Alcázar. The film was released on 6 May 2005 by 20th Century Fox and received mixed reviews upon theatrical release. It grossed $218 million worldwide. On 23 December 2005, Scott released a director's cut, which many reviewers called the definitive version of the film.[5][6]
Plot[edit]
In medieval France, Balian, a blacksmith who is haunted by his wife's recent suicide after the death of their unborn child, meets a group of Crusaders who visit his village. Their leader introduces himself as Balian's father, Baron Godfrey, and asks him to return with him to the Holy Land, but Balian declines. Later that night, Balian kills his half-brother, the town priest, after discovering that he ordered Balian's wife's body beheaded before burial. The next day, Balian joins his father's group, hoping to gain salvation for himself and his wife in Jerusalem. They are soon confronted by soldiers sent to arrest Balian, during which many are killed, and an arrow strikes Godfrey. Reaching Messina, they have a contentious encounter with Guy de Lusignan, a prospective future king of Jerusalem who intends to break the fragile alliance between the Crusader states and Sultan Saladin with help from the brutal anti-Muslim Templar Knights. A night before the departure, Godfrey knights Balian and orders him to protect the helpless before succumbing to his arrow wound.
Balian sails for the Holy Land, but his ship runs aground in a storm, leaving him the lone survivor. As he makes his way to Jerusalem on foot, Balian fights a Muslim cavalier over a horse he found. Balian slays the cavalier but spares his servant, who guides him to Jerusalem. Arriving in the city, Balian frees the servant, who tells him his mercy will earn him the Saracens' respect. Balian quickly becomes acquainted with Jerusalem's political arena: the leper King Baldwin IV, Tiberias the Marshal of Jerusalem, and the King's sister Princess Sibylla, Guy's wife and mother to a boy from an earlier marriage. Balian then travels to his inherited estate at Ibelin, and, using his knowledge in engineering, he helps the struggling residents irrigate the land. Sibylla visits him, and they become lovers.
Meanwhile, Guy and his ally, the cruel Raynald of Châtillon, attack many Saracen caravans, provoking Saladin to march on Raynald's castle in retaliation. Balian defends the castle and the nearby villagers at the king's request despite being outnumbered. After a fierce battle that ends with the Crusaders defeated, Balian encounters the servant he freed, learning that he is actually Saladin's chancellor Imad ad-Din. Imad ad-Din releases Balian in repayment of his earlier mercy. Saladin and Baldwin later arrive with their armies and negotiate a truce. After punishing Raynald and Guy, a weakened Baldwin asks Balian to marry Sibylla and take control of the army, but Balian refuses. Baldwin eventually dies and is succeeded by Sibylla's son. As regent, Sibylla continues to maintain peace with Saladin. Not long after, Sibylla learns that her son is developing leprosy like his late uncle, to her horror, so she tearfully poisons him while he sleeps in her arms. Sibylla then hands the crown to Guy.
As king, Guy declares war on the Saracens, attempts to assassinate Balian, who barely survives, and releases Raynald, who murders Saladin's sister. Guy marches to war despite Balian's advice to remain near Jerusalem's water sources. As a result, the Saracens overwhelm the exhausted Crusaders in the ensuing desert battle. In the aftermath, Saladin takes Guy captive, executes Raynald, and marches on Jerusalem. Tiberias leaves for Cyprus while Balian stays to protect the people. After a devastating three-day siege, Saladin parleys with Balian, who reaffirms he will destroy Jerusalem if Saladin does not accept his terms of surrender. Saladin agrees to allow the Christians to leave safely, and then he and Balian ponder if it would be better if the city were destroyed, leaving nothing to fight over. The Christians leave Jerusalem while Balian encounters a humiliated Guy, whom he defeats in a sword fight and spares him. Balian later finds Sibylla, who has renounced her claim as queen, and they return to France.
A few years later, English knights en route to the Holy Land, visit Balian, now the famed defender of Jerusalem, in his village. Balian refuses the English king's offer to join his army, stating that he is merely a blacksmith. Later, Balian passes by his wife's grave as he rides with Sibylla towards the unknown. An epilogue notes that "nearly a thousand years later, peace in the Kingdom of Heaven still remains elusive".
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film was a box office disappointment in the US and Canada, earning $47.4 million against a budget of around $130 million, but did better in Europe and the rest of the world, earning $164.3 million, with the worldwide box office earnings totalling $211,643,158.[14] It was also a success in Arabic-speaking countries, especially Egypt. Scott insinuated that the US failure of the film resulted from poor advertising, which presented the film as an adventure with a love story rather than an examination of religious conflict.[15] It has also been noted that the film was altered from its original version to be shorter and follow a simpler plot line. This "less sophisticated" version is what hit theatres, although Scott and some of his crew felt it was watered down, explaining that by editing, "You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything".[16]
Critical response[edit]
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 40% based on reviews from 189 critics, with an average rating of 5.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Although it's an objective and handsomely presented take on the Crusades, Kingdom of Heaven lacks depth."[17] Review aggregator Metacritic gives the film a 63/100 rating based on 40 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews" according to the website's weighted average system.[18]
Roger Ebert called the film "spectacular" and found its message to be deeper than that of Scott's Gladiator.[9] Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com praised the cinematography but found the storytelling "muddled and oppressive", the battles "one long gray smudge of action with some talking in between."[8] James Berardinelli wrote, "You may not leave the theater feeling better educated about history or enlightened about the Crusades, but you will leave satisfied that the filmmakers have delivered 145 minutes of exciting, visceral cinema."[19] Geoffrey O'Brien describes, "The film's underlying antiheroic pessimism fits oddly with a style that aspires to the heroic."[20] John Aberth said, "Kingdom of Heaven wants it far too simple to accommodate its unnecessarily convoluted plot innovations."[21]
Most of the cast was praised. Jack Moore described Edward Norton's performance as the leper-King Baldwin as "phenomenal", and "so far removed from anything that he has ever done that we see the true complexities of his talent".[22] The Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud was praised for his portrayal of Saladin, described in The New York Times as "cool as a tall glass of water".[23] Zacharek thought Eva Green's Princess Sibylla had "a measure of cool that defies her surroundings", and commended David Thewlis and Jeremy Irons.[8]
Lead actor Bloom's performance generally elicited a lukewarm reception from American critics, with the Boston Globe stating Bloom was "not actively bad as Balian of Ibelin" but "seems like a man holding the fort for a genuine star who never arrives".[24] Other critics conceded that Balian was more of a "brave and principled thinker-warrior" than a strong commander,[8] and that he used brains rather than brawn to gain an advantage in battle.[25]
Extended director's cut[edit]
Unhappy with the theatrical version of Kingdom of Heaven (which he blamed on paying too much attention to the opinions of preview audiences, and acceding to Fox's request to shorten the film by 45 minutes), Ridley Scott supervised a director's cut of the film, which was released on 23 December 2005 at the Laemmle Fairfax Theatre in Los Angeles, California.[39] Unlike the mixed critical reception of the film's theatrical version, the Director's Cut received overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics, including a four-star review in the British magazine Total Film and a ten out of ten from IGN DVD.[40][41][42] Empire magazine called the reedited film an "epic", adding, "The added 45 minutes in the director's cut are like pieces missing from a beautiful but incomplete puzzle."[5] One reviewer suggested it is the most substantial director's cut of all time[6] and James Berardinelli wrote that it offers a much greater insight into the story and the motivations of individual characters.[43] "This is the one that should have gone out" reflected Scott.[5]
The DVD of the extended director's cut was released on 23 May 2006. It comprises a four-disc box set with a runtime of 194 minutes. It is shown as a roadshow presentation with an overture and intermission in the vein of traditional Hollywood epic films.[39] The first Blu-ray release omitted the roadshow elements, running at 189 minutes, but they were restored for the 2014 'Ultimate Edition' release.[44]
Scott gave an interview to STV on the occasion of the extended edition's UK release, when he discussed the motives and thinking behind the new version.[45] Asked if he was against previewing in general in 2006, Scott stated: "It depends who's in the driving seat. If you've got a lunatic doing my job, then you need to preview. But a good director should be experienced enough to judge what he thinks is the correct version to go out into the cinema."[46]