Movie Review Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven (2005) 

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by William Monahan

Starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, David Thewlis, Liam Neeson

Release Date May 6th, 2005

Published May 5th, 2005 

When Ridley Scott announced he was taking on a crusades era epic, red flags went up all over the world. Given the current sensitivities in the middle east and the constantly inflamed situation on the border of Israel and Palestine specifically, a film about the crusades made by westerners seemed like a bad idea. That film, Kingdom Of Heaven, is now complete and it is indeed controversial, but not in the way we thought it would be. Instead of offending believers in Islam, the film goes out of its way to be fair to all sides which actually worked to offend many christians. You just can't win.

Orlando Bloom is the star of Kingdom Of Heaven as Balian, a blacksmith who we meet at the lowest point in his life. His son died shortly after birth, which led his wife to take her own life. His own priest is quick to remind him that because his wife committed suicide she will not go to heaven. It is at this lowest point that Balian's father Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson) returns with an offer of salvation, comes to the holy land, inherits his kingdom and helps King Baldwin maintain the tentative peace that has followed the third Crusade.

Balian is reluctant but eventually circumstances conspire to send Balian to the holy land. Along the way Balian's father is mortally wounded leaving Balian his title, Lord of Ibelin, and the charge to defend the people of the kingdom at all cost. Balian soon arrives in the holy land after surviving a nasty shipwreck, and is taken to meet King Baldwin (Edward Norton, hidden behind a metal mask) who immediately recognizes the good in Balian and entrusts him with defending the kingdom alongside his chief military officer Tiberius (Jeremy Irons).

The biggest threat to peace in the holy land is not the Muslim leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud), who is portrayed as a reasonable and peaceful leader. The threat comes from inside King Baldwin's court, his sister Sybilla (Eva Green)'s huband Guy De Lusignan (Martin Csokas) commander of the Knights Templar, the Vatican's own order of Knights, intent on forcing all non-christians out of the holy city of Jerusalem. King Baldwin has managed a shaky peace but he is dying, the king has leprosy, when he is gone Sybilla will be queen and De Lusignan king.

This is the point in which the plot takes a disastrous turn. Balian is given an opportunity to kill Guy De Lusignan and marry Sybilla. The two have, by this time, fallen in love but Balian chooses not to and thus dooms the kingdom to a war with Saladin and his army of more than 200,000 soldiers. Though Balian, Tiberius and the soldiers in their charge refuse to fight, De Lusignan goes ahead with the attack and it is left to Balian to defend the innocent people left behind when the new king's army is destroyed.

One of my biggest pet peeves about movies is when the entire film rests on one obvious decision that if made correctly would negate the rest of the film. Balian's decision not to let Guy De Lusignan be hanged as a traitor, which he is, is the single dumbest decision he could possibly make. He knows that by deciding to spare him he is making him the new king and that thousands will die because of it. Balian's decision only offers the film the opportunity to continue, if he makes the right decision, the movie is over.

Is this linked to historical accuracy? No! In reality Balian never fell in love with or had an affair with Sybilla. The romance is a construct of director Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan and they nearly try to pin the entire plot of the film onto one. The romance crumbles under the weight of the plot that hangs on it. Neither Orlando Bloom or Eva Green sparks in the subplot.

What is worse is that the romance is clearly a marketing decision and not a creative decision. The only reason Sybilla and Balian get together is because all ancient epic movie hero's have doomed romances. Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy had Polydora, Russell Crowe's Maximus had Connie Nielsen's Lucilla and most recently Colin Ferrell's Alexander had Jared Leto's Hephaistion.

As for the action, I was one of the rare detractors of Ridley Scott's Oscar winning epic Gladiator, and the same problems that plagued that film plague Kingdom Of Heaven. CGI Hordes clashing on the battlefield gets real old real fast without a compelling story and dialogue as a backup. Gladiator, however, did have one thing going for it and that was the magnetism of star Russell Crowe, Kingdom Of Heaven is not as fortunate.

Surrounded by an extraordinary supporting cast, Orlando Bloom fades into the background never emerging as a believable action hero. When called upon to deliver a rousing speech near the end of the film, he sounds more like the petulant child he played in Troy than the inspiring hero that Russell Crowe brought to Gladiator. Bloom may have packed on 25 pounds of muscle for this role but nothing can make this guy look tough.

Liam Neeson in particular makes Bloom look bad. Neeson blows the kid off the screen with his stature, gravitas and poise. When Neeson leaves the movie you are sad to see him go. Jeremy Irons and the voice of Edward Norton are equally more compelling than Mr. Bloom. Finally putting his blustery scene chewing to rest, Irons delivers a weary but knowing performance and Mr. Norton though hidden behind a horrible metal mask cannot mask his natural actorly charisma.

With its plot construction problems and desperately inept lead, the least Ridley Scott could do is deliver on the controversy we were promised when the New York Times began floating the script around to religious experts and historians. Instead the film is even handed to a fault. There is the minor matter of the Vatican's own army portrayed as thuggish glory hounds fighting for riches instead of god, that is a little controversial but it's too weakly played to really resonate in the kind of controversy you remember and talk about after the movie.

No, in fact there is little to remember or discuss about Kingdom Of Heaven, another mundane exercise in Hollywood spending and marketing.

Movie Review: Eragon

Eragon (2006) 

Directed by Stefan Wangmeir

Written by Peter Buchman 

Starring Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle

Release Date December 15th, 2006

Published December 15th, 2006

What if you took the Lord of the Rings and removed the visual wonder? Then added the Star Wars mythos without any of the genuine spirit. Why if you did that you would get Eragon a dopey sci-fi fantasy that for good measure throws in the wussiest dragons in movie history on top of it's ludicrous LOTR-Star Wars pretensions.

In some ridiculously under-produced middle ages land; dragons are a dying breed. Only the tyrant king (John Malkovich) has one. However, the king also has a dragon egg which has been stolen by the rebel queen Arya (Sienna Guillory). Though she is quickly captured by the king's top henchmam Durza (Robert Carlyle), she manages to stash the dragon's egg with a farm boy who happens to be the egg's natural master.

Eragon is the farm boy's name and it turns out that it was his destiny to be a dragon rider. With the help of a drifter, and former dragon rider, named Brom (Jeremy Irons), Eragon learns what being a dragon rider is all about. With his dragon Saphira (voice of Rachel Weisz), Eragon must learn to become a magician and a warrior and lead a resistance army against the tyrant king.

It's a story so simple it could have been written by a teenager. In fact, it was written by a teenager. 16 year old Christopher Paolini wrote the novel on which Eragon was based and has written a series of books based on this character. Having never read the books I can't tell you how well they compare to the movie. I can say that I am impressed that 16 year old would have such a great imagination, the movie version could have used a little imagination.

Directed by Stefan Fangmeier, in his debut feature, Eragon is a goofball sci fi fantasy that tells a dopey, Lord of the Rings inspired adventure with half the imagination and little of the visual wonder. The film has pretensions of Star Wars as Brom acts as Eragon's version of Obi Wan Kenobi, including a nobel death, while Garrett Hedlund shows up as wimpy Han Solo clone Murtagh.

Robert Carlyle is an extraordinarily effete version of Darth Maul from Episode 1 and Malkovich chews the scenery as both Darth Vader and Chancellor Palpatine.

Of course Eragon is a bad facsimile of both LOTR and Star Wars but; the film it most resembles is the brutal Dungeons and Dragons movie from 2000. That film at the very least featured dragons with some backbone. The dragon in Eragon is a sensitive girl who can't breath fire for most of the film. I love Rachel Weisz but having her voice a dragon just confirms that this is the wussiest dragon since the original Shrek when the red dragon romanced a donkey.

Eragon is an example of why parody us nearly impossible in this day and age. How can parody something as ludicrous as Eragon. On the surface the film seems ripe for caricature. However, the film is such a travesty in and of itself that parody seems redundant. Check the performance of Robert Carlyle who with his pudgy face and long locks and middle ages dress, looks like the ugliest girl at the prom. His goofy accent and lisp don't help matters much either.

John Malkovich eats the scenery as if his performance was an homage to co-star Jeremy Irons while star Edward Speleers turns in a teary, bleary performance that only Hugh Jackman in The Fountain could truly appreciate. Some critics could fairly point out that both Elijah Wood in LOTR and Mark Hammill in the original Star Wars didn't exactly cut manly heroic figures; but Speleers in Eragon makes both of those actors look like John Wayne in comparison.

Eragon remakes Dungeons and Dragons without the geek cache. The dragons are wimpy, the acting brutal and over the top, and the special effects are worse than anything the legendary Z-movie director Uwe Boll has turned out. If only Eragon had had Uwe Boll behind the camera. That, at the very least, would raise the camp level. Kitsch is really the only thing that could rescue even a few moments of pleasure from this abysmal fantasy.

Movie Review Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed (2016) 

Directed by Justin Kurzel 

Written by Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage

Starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling

Release Date December 21st, 2016 

Published December 20th, 2016

I cannot win with this review. I can, in my mind, already hear the voices of those who say that because I don’t like videogames I cannot appreciate a videogame movie. Then there are those who will recall the number of times I have decried the videogame movie subgenre and will also claim I went into “Assassin’s Creed” with bias. My only response to these spectral voices is believe whatever you want, Assassin’s Creed is simply not a very good movie, videogame adaptation or otherwise.

Michael Fassbender stars in “Assassin’s Creed” as Callum Lynch, the son of a murdered mother and a murderer father who grows up to be a killer himself. We meet the adult Callum on the day he is to be executed for what we can only assume was some sort of murder spree. The execution however, does not take and Callum wakes up in Spain where he’s been kidnapped by the Knights Templar who plan to hook Callum to a machine that can access the memories of his ancestors (just go with it).

Callum’s ancestors were members of an ancient order of Assassins known as the Creed. The Creed were created to battle the Knights Templar and specifically keep the Knights from getting their hands on The Apple, literally the apple taken from the tree knowledge in the Garden of Eden. For the reasons of the plot the Apple has the power to remove free will from the world and grant the Knights Templar the power to enslave humanity.

Through his time in the machine, called the Animus, Callum will learn the story of the Creed and will polish his assassin skills. Will he use those skills to continue his family legacy? Yeah, probably, the Knights Templar are obviously the bad guys here. Nevertheless, I will leave some mystery for you to discover if you choose to subject yourself to “Assassin’s Creed,” though I do not recommend that you do that.

“Assassin’s Creed” is a forgettable bad movie, not one that will leave much of any lasting impression. Michael Fassbender and co-stars Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons and Michael K. Williams are all professionals who give life to the material even if it proves unworthy of the effort. Fassbender is a physical specimen whose glower certainly can petrify an enemy but he’s at a loss to overcome the CGI splattered all around him in messy edits that render every frame of “Assassin’s Creed” a minor eyesore.

“Assassin’s Creed” comes from Director Justin Kurzel whose adaptation of “MacBeth,” yes that “Macbeth,” also starred Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard and was similarly an eyesore. At least his “MacBeth” has ambition, Kurzel’s “Assassin’s Creed,” on the other hand, feels like an attempt to appease a studio eager for a well-known product to churn into a formula franchise that creates new revenue streams and elevates stock prices.

Poor Michael Fassbender; he seems lost in a Hollywood that doesn’t understand his gifts. Despite that chin that could cut glass and eyes that could pierce steel, Fassbender isn’t a classic “movie star.” We, the popcorn chomping blockbuster masses, simply respect him as an actor too much to watch him act below his skill level. Sure, his version of the “X-Men” villain Magneto is well liked but we’d all hoped that was his “one for them” studio picture that would let him get back to being a real actor.

Instead he has stranded himself in “Assassin’s Creed” as another “one for them” movie and we are left to lament the kinds of performances he could be dedicating his time too. Quirky, wonderful indie flicks like “Frank” and “Fish Tank” gave us the Michael Fassbender we truly want while “X-Men” was supposed to be the insurance for the next “Frank” or “Fish Tank.” Now, with “Assassin’s Creed,” who knows where Fassbender may be headed, probably cruddier looking CGI claptrap. What a shame.