Kingdom of Heaven Review

Orlando Bloom swaps Middle Earth for the Middle Ages in this sword and sandals epic from director Ridley Scott. Bloom plays Balian, a grieving Blacksmith who one day finds out he's actually the son of a nobleman (played by Liam Neeson) and heads off to the Holy Land to seek a new life and forgiveness for his wife who killed herself following the death of their child. Once there though he gets tangled up with uneasy peace between Christians and Muslims as well as the wife (Eva Green) of his sworn enemy.

It's become quite fashionable to criticize Bloom's acting talents recently - so who are we to buck a trend? He's capable enough as Balian - i.e he gets all his lines right - but let's face it, if you want someone we can all get behind and cheer when he gives a Henry V style rallying speech to his troops, then Orlando just isn't your man. He's simply too lightweight. It doesn't help that he spends a large chunk of the movie wandering around a desert oasis, looking for all the world like he got lost on his way to Goa.

As for Ridley Scott, well as we've come to expect from the man behind "Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down", nothing about "Kingdom Of Heaven" is understated. The cast is a superstar to a man - joining Bloom are the likes of Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton and David Thewlis - while the action is as big as anything "The Lord Of The Rings" had to offer - but that's part of the problem. Few, if any of the characters are explored fully while you half expect an army of Orcs to come storming towards Jerusalem in the climactic fight because it's so similar to Peter Jackson's big screen scraps. Also an epic running time of 145 mins means that it's about an hour before things really get going and if Ridley was trying to convey any message about religious tolerance, then it gets lost amid all the bloody battles and contrived romance.

But let's not be too harsh - Kingdom Of Heaven is certainly a cracking popcorn flick and it'll have fans - Orlando-ites especially - flocking to cinemas. But if this is meant to be an epic in the "Ben Hur" mold, then they certainly don't make them like they used to.