Every single supporting actor, every single extra, every single horse and camel, prop and plant….

… is more interesting than the main character.

And that is fatal to a movie.

It’s what I like to call the curse of Orlando Bloom.

This movie was sunk because it was saddled with Bloom. He is the blandest, the dullest, the most pointless actor that has ever been put on the big screen.

How did he get into movies? His pervasive blandness literally sucks the life out of entire scenes. And that’s when he’s just a supporting actor.

But the problem with Kingdom of Heaven is that somebody had the bright idea of making Bloom the leading man, dooming the movie to mediocrity.

Look at the supporting actors: Neeson, Irons, Gleeson, Norton, Eva Green, the guy playing Saladin… Every one of these characters would have made a more interesting subject for the movie than the character played by Bloom. The story of Bloom’s HORSE would have been more interesting.

And this is all the more sickening because Kingdom Of Heaven COULD have been great.

It looks fantastic - it captures the orientalist vision of the Holy Land brilliantly; it has some terrific battle sequences (the CGI had finally gotten to the point where they could make massive armies look convincing), it has a half-decent script, and some terrific actors. And yes, the director's cut improves the movie greatly.

But at the centre of all this wonder is a big Bloom-sized hole. An emptiness. A big Nothing.

An epic movie of this size NEEDS a strong actor to carry it. Look at Gladiator – a fairly run-of-the-mill swords n’sandals B-picture with lousy CGI and choppy action scenes.

But it’s gripping. Why? Because Russell Crowe is a kick-ass leading man with phenomenal screen presence. He’s great to watch and he’s great in that role. He makes the material work.

That’s what Kindom Of Heaven desperately needed. Instead they hired a man who has the personality and screen presence of a half-pint of milk.

It’s weird, but if you watch the extras on the DVD, the filmmakers seem oblivious as to why their movie was a commercial failure. Ridley Scott doesn’t seem to pay much attention to which actors get hired for his movies – he just expects them to get on with the job while he occupies himself with the cameras and lighting. He apparently doesn’t see that having a weak leading man makes all the craftmanship and cinematography useless.

But the most amazing character in all this is the screenwriter, William Monahan – who is a study in arrogance and self-delusion. He claims that the movie he wrote is “the best historical drama ever made”. Really? And you wrote it yourself! What a coincidence! Remind me never to work with you!

Off the top of my head, I can name five historical dramas that are better than Kingdom Of Heaven:

Lawrence Of Arabia

A Man For All Seasons

Zulu

The Passion Of The Christ

Michael Collins

Hell, I’ll even throw in Braveheart.

Monaghan then goes on to pour scorn on viewers who didn’t ‘get’ certain scenes – such as that incredibly patronising sequence where Bloom’s Balian (who’s supposed to be a French blacksmith/engineer) arrives in the desert and TEACHES THE LOCALS HOW TO IRRIGATE THEIR LAND. That’s right, the locals who’ve been living there for centuries: they need the likes of whiteboy Bloom to show them how to survive. Er, hello? the arabs practically invented engineering!

Insulting to the intelligence of all concerned, but especially that of the viewer. But Monaghan says it’s because WE’VE misunderstood the scene.

Wrong. You wrote it that way. It got filmed that way. Don’t blame the viewer for the movie you made!

But even scenes like this wouldn’t have mattered if they had hired an actor for the central role.

But it doesn't matter. It's just a tiny scene and it isn't what destroyed the movie. The movie was ruined by the kiss-of-death of Orlando Bloom.

Nothing against the guy personally - he probably has no idea how boring he is. Just takes the jobs that are offered to him - and who can blame him?

But for the love of God, keep him out of potentially great movies - PLEASE!

Jesus, couldn't they have got Russell Crowe (or a younger equivalent - Christian Bale? Joaquim Phoenix?) to star in kingdom Of Heaven? It would have turned the movie into a masterpiece.

The Theatrical Cut should never be shown again--only the Director's Cut.

I heard that Troy also benefits in the directors cut but wasn't sure whether to waste my time on that one again?

Definately check out this one though.

The director's cut is fucking great, again smoothing out the storyline but NOT cutting out wide chuncks that are crucial to explaining character's actions.

It's a nice hidden gem that you discovered Quint.

For instance, I watched a nice little movie last night: Millions. I really thought the two kids did a great job.

You being an alien does make sense however. :D

The bottom line is that I haven't see you on here actually proclaim your love of a particular movie. It doesn't matter if you don't like the same movies as me, but I will be amazed when I am on a thread and you actually like some movie.

And I liked A Good Year too. Was it a bit silly in how it so neatly turned out, etc? Yup. Still liked it.

And sorry, but no, I don't bitch at people for liking a movie I don't. I'm not the one who refers to movies they don't like as a "retarded piece of shit".

A tip of the scraper and a glass of wine with you, sir! It's nice to see that someone else shares my opinion that M&C was robbed! I love Tolkien, but I love O'Brian more.

Put me down as someone else who loves the director's cut of KOH. I actually held off buying the original version of the DVD because I heard that a director's cut would eventually be released and it was well worth the wait. If you haven't seen this one then get it!

M&C is one of my all-time favorite movies. They absolutely nailed it. Crowe isn't quite the Captain Aubrey of the books (who is very overweight and somewhat clownish) - but he's a damned fine captain! I'll take his portrayal any day of the week. Now THAT'S a movie I would love a sequel to.

Of course, I'm sure we all agree that the Oscars themselves are a meaningless and silly publicity circus with little or no intention of rewarding great films. BUT, that being said, despite themselves, they DO occasionally veer in the direction of movies that deserve awards. Example: Unforgiven (best picture - deserved). Also, this year wasn't too bad, with awards given to pretty decent films, though The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (best film I've seen this year so far) lost out to the admittedly very good Counterfeiters.

But if they were going to give awards to any of the LOTR movies, it should have been Fellowship Of the Ring - which was the best one by far - because - surprise surprise - it concentrated more on the writing and performances. ROTK started very well but disintegrated into a CGI mess and tedious, Lassie-Come-Home endings. Don't know what to make of TTT which was a bit of a mixed bag. I really wish that instead of giving Peter Jackson MORE money to add CGI to each of the LOTR movies, he had actually been given LESS. I guarantee the movies would have turned out better: he would have been forced to concentrate on the story and characters.

Thank you for the kind words, sir! May Mr. O'Brian's grand series bring you hours of joy!

I observe the bottle stands by you, sir!

I thought FOTR was very good, TTT okay, but it looked like Peter Jackson lost his mind half-way through ROTK what with the ghostbusters army, endless marching orcs and interminable epilogues...

Sorry, Master and Commander should have got the prize! Great film, based on a great series of books.

I think I remember Eva having a kid, so maybe I saw the Director's Cut - it was on TV and I'm pretty sure they didn't mention anything like "Special" or "Extended" Edition or something like that - it was long, but you know, with commercials and all...

Anyway, always thought this one was underrated!

Absolutely none of that carried over in the theatrical cut. It's remarkable how much better this was.

And why is it necessary to apportion blame to anyone? I think that there was a lot of excellence in the LOTR films. There was also a lot of mediocrity. Get over it (learnt that phrase from you!). That's life. Who do I blame exactly? God?

Personally, I find the first LOTR movie to be the best. As the series goes on it seems to dip in quality. The final twenty minutes or so of ROTK are very poor indeed , embarrassing in fact - and don't blame Tolkien! He wrote a book, not a screenplay!

Who, or what are we supposed to blame? The fatigue the film-makers must inevitably have suffered as the project ground along over the years? The necessity of using pedestrian second-units without which the films would never have been completed in the first place? Pressure from the studio? Poor judgement? Orlando Bloom? God knows.

Or maybe, like you suggest, we should just accept that there is a lot of crapness in the world and just move on.

The much debated ending of RotK generally boils down to taste…like a Slim-Jim, one either likes it or they don’t. I found the ending, while not a suitable replacement for The Scouring of the Shire, perfectly acceptable in its own right and I’m a long time Tolkien fan.

And who's giving anything a pass? I already stated M&C was a better movie (movie making, not story) than RotK. But LotR, the movie was, in my opinion, better than M&C and more deserving of an Oscar.

I agree, probably exhaustion on everyone’s part accounts for the less than even state of RotK not to mention the mid-stream excising of XenArwen from much that had already been filmed!

But all that aside, I don't think they're two types of movies that can be easily compared except on the minutiae of technical details and, of course, whether they hit the mark the authors originally intended. In fact, all one can do is argue about the Oscars and, like I said, that’s a done deal anyway.

Get over it? I’m even over how Jackson made changes to the story (agree that maybe cutting back on funding might’ve allowed more focus on the writing) that weren’t necessary and only muddled what Tolkien had originally written. This is what resulted in any mediocre parts, I think. Nonetheless, I’m so utterly delighted with how LotR turned out that, in the end, there’s is nothing for me to get over. The sum of the whole is superior to some of its parts.

And I have to say that M&C wins out every time. Weir captures both the spirit and detail of O’Brien’s books better than Jackson does with LOTR – and still manages to create an outstanding piece of cinema in its own right. No need to bore you with a checklist here – but comparing them side-by-side, M&C is the more successful adaptation. I should emphasise here that I’m discussing the films – not the original texts. I am in no way saying O’Brien is a better writer than Tolkien! As far as I am concerned each is a grand master of his particular genre.

Now, as good as the LOTR films are (whether taken singly or taken as a whole), I can not apply the words “outstanding cinema” to them. They just are not on the same level technically as M&C (nor could they be – given the different scales of each production). In terms of script, direction, cinematography, action scenes, pacing, editing, seamless and judicious use of CGI… M&C wins hands-down. I don’t want to insult you by breaking down each of those categories and spelling them out – it’s all subjective and based on my own tastes and experience – but, importantly NOT based on any bias towards one or other of the film-makers.

But just to take ONE example: I find the fight/battle scenes in M&C to be completely riveting. For starters, they are orchestrated (and communicated to the viewer) with an eye to the strategy and tactics being employed by the participants. And then technically they are executed beautifully and with a palpable sense of risk and danger.

Now Tolkien went to some lengths to describe the progress of his battles in his writing – and they are extremely gripping – as are all his fight/action scenes (the Mines Of Moria sequence is particularly brilliant). But this just doesn’t translate into the movies: the fight and battle scenes are (to me) competent but otherwise fairly dull. They are also drowned in excessive CGI. I remember that when watching ROTK, I was enjoying the experience just fine until the ghostbusters arrived on the battlefield and Legolas jumped the elephant. They lost me there. After that, I found myself zoning out for the rest of the movie as more and more CGI and multiple endings trundled past.

Well, that’s just one aspect – and I’m already getting long-winded. But for me, M&C will always be one of the many, many movies in the history of the Oscars that was robbed of its Best Film Oscar by an inferior - but more popular and financially successful production. So M&C stands in excellent company: Dr Strangelove, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, The Shawshank Redenption, Goodfellas, Fellowship Of The Ring, etc…

However, I have to debate the whole concept of treating the LOTR trilogy as ONE film. Yes, I know what you mean - they are three sections of one big story, based on ONE big book. Sure, we both know that.

But in terms of structure, tone, pacing, music score, colour scheme and editing style, each one of those movies is DEFINITELY distinct and indivdual. In fact, I'm sure that each one had a different editor. Each movie has its own beginning, middle and end. This is a deliberate choice of the film-makers - and they have changed some of Tolkien's original structure to achieve that outcome, justifiably so, in my opinion.

I will say that they also differ greatly in quality. So I have no difficulty seeing them as three distinct films - in fact it makes more sense to me that way. (The book, on the other hand, makes more sense as ONE big book).

As I've said above, the first movie is by far the best, being the one that LOOKS to have benefitted from the most attention to the story, drama and performances. It also depends less on CGI than the other two - and I can only say that's a good thing. But that being said, even if FOTR were up against M&C, I would STILL have to hand the Best Oscar to M&C.

Now if I could have worked that out a little earlier, it would have saved me a lot of time...