What Kingdom of Heaven needs to be successful

I think that thefacebook.com is pretty much the most reliable cultural barometer ever. I was struck, then, when I noticed consistent trends in movie-favoring. My favorite movie is Gladiator, which is also a favorite movie of 205 other Dartmouth students, and also the 64th-highest-grossing movie of all time. Another 472 (that’s about 1/8 of the 4,000 students on campus) were all about the Lord of the Rings series. That deserves an asterisk, because some might have listed the book rather than the movie, but I’ll bet they liked the movie too. Why is any of this significant? Because Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven is due for release on May 6.

Now, before you think you’re on a train to Non-Sequitur City, Population: This Article, let me explain. Gladiator, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the Etc. Etc, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Passion of the Christ all have one thing in common: all are among the top 100 highest-grossing movies of all time. All were also released after September 11 (with the exception of Gladiator). And each has something in common with Kingdom of Heaven, a movie that promises to be at the confluence of the most notable movie trends of the past half-decade.

In 2002, following the release of The Two Towers, TIME magazine published an article conjecturing about the success of the fantasy genre. Lev Grossman wrote of its supplanting the sleek, sci-fi action thrillers that had dominated the ‘90s:

“Our fascination with science fiction reflected a deep collective faith that technology would lead us to a cyberutopia of robot butlers serving virtual mai tais, [but]...the utopian vision we had didn't come to pass." Instead, the new millennium heralded despair and existential disquiet, as Americans grappled with what technology had brought them: planes that could fly into buildings, war with an invisible, irrational enemy, the threat of death every time you open the mail. Grossman specifically noted the appeal to clarity that the vicissitudes and ambiguities of the soulless postmodern world withheld. “We are a nation in need of a good, clear war story. At a time when Americans are wandering deeper into a nebulous conflict against a faceless enemy, Tolkien gives us the war we wish we were fighting — a struggle with a foe whose face we can see, who fights out on the open battlefield, far removed from innocent civilians. In Middle-earth, unlike the Middle East, you can tell an evildoer because he or she looks evil.”

Similar to The Two Towers are Gladiator, The Passion of the Christ, even Pirates and Harry Potter, all of which also offer vicarious recourse to a simpler, nobler, more chivalric, or at least more black-and-white time that was, I would argue, wholly absent from the Men in Black franchise. Now, I can’t say that Kingdom of Heaven will have all these elements—certainly Ridley Scott would be foolish to completely vilify the Saracen antagonists in light of today’s PC atmosphere and the generally upright way in which they treated the Christian captives of Jerusalem — but with a line like “Be without fear in the face of your enemies, be brave and upright that God may love thee, speak the truth, always, even if it leads to your death, safeguard the helpless and do no wrong—that is your oath” spoken by a dying Liam Neeson to his son before the trailer cuts to a battle montage accompanied by a wailing electric guitar, well, Dorothy, we aren’t in a Keanu Reeves flick any more.

The second trend that will no doubt inform Kingdom of Heaven is also inherently reactionary: a serious appraisal of Christianity. Christianity is the new midgets when it comes to surefire cinematic profit—and new it is: could you imagine The Passion of the Christ being released in the mid-‘90s to compete with Independence Day or Armageddon? The only successful Jesus movies of the past thirty years have either been a) heretically revisionist or b) musicals, but Passion, in 2004, managed to ascend to the cinema pantheon of top ten highest grossing movies of all time. Certainly this is contingent with the upswing in faith in America following September 11. Before, Christianity was usually derided in pop culture (Dogma, anyone?), but detached irony, it turned out, offered few answers in the wake of the largest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Everywhere, the Middle American psyche began to shift right, and so the time became ripe for a reassessment of Christianity and faith.

In truth, I doubt Scott will draw on the overtly Christian elements of the crusade, for it is not ritual and catechism that brought on this renewed interest in Christian movies, or even caused Americans to turn to religion in their own uncertainty, but rather the simplicity of faith, the affirmation of a higher goal for which mere mortals might sublimate their seemingly inconsequential efforts. This is not exclusive to Christianity, but in fact cements all the most successful action/drama movies of the ‘00s together. Lord of the Rings had its unlikely hero persevere against all odds because he knew his cause was righteous—the only choice. Passion inspired so many not because it was controversial—moviegoers didn’t see it five times for that—but because it was Christ’s simple struggle to brave sickening adversity and do what He had to do. All Gladiator’s Maximus wanted was to avenge the deaths of his family members, and to save Rome from a pernicious tyrant. Here’s where these diverge from dime-a-dozen Gladiator rip-offs like Troy, King Arthur, and The Alamo. Audiences could not sense the transcendent urgency in the conflicts of these movies, could not find and connect with the internal crises of a fallible character who nonetheless never quit. Sure, these movies resonate because they offer an escape to an ideal world, free of the duplicity and uncertainty ours is rife with, but so does any fantasy, like Pirates or Harry Potter. Indeed, if Kingdom of Heaven is to succeed as an historic epic, a Christian movie, or a good story, it will have to invoke the kind of personal, yet universal faith that last decade’s slick star-vehicles lacked.