Ridley Scott's two-and-a-half hour epic about the religious Crusades of the middle ages has armies marching every which way, of course, but the biggest army of all might be behind the scenes – the teams of advisors employed by a non-Muslim director to make sure no delicate Muslim toes were stepped on. The result is a rigorously even-handed epic about a subject over which, nearly a millennium later, passions still run dangerously high. The film treads so gingerly on its core conflict, in fact, that it feels very nearly drained of passion – perhaps the deadliest sin for a movie that is ostensibly about, above all else, passion.

Scott's technicians give us a digitized 12th century Jerusalem every bit as awe-inspiring as those digital vistas of imperial Rome that Russell Crowe recently strode through, and the battle scenes here are as spectacular (and spectacularly bloody) as you'd expect from the director of Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. It's all terribly beautiful but also, for far too much of the time, not particularly interesting. Kingdom of Heaven is too long by at least half an hour, its central figure (a blacksmith-turned-knight portrayed by Orlando Bloom) is curiously uncharismatic, and too much of its running time is taken up with speechmaking and pretty platitudes. Scott and screenwriter William Monahan divide up their Muslim and Christian characters into two camps – men of conscience and fanatics – and then place words in their mouths that offer thinly veiled but not particularly enlightening commentary on the current day clash of civilizations. The movie's visionaries speak of peaceful co-existence between all religions, while its foaming-at-the-mouth radicals (all Christian, interesting enough) spit out comments like, "To kill an infidel is not murder, it is the path of heaven" – words from a 12th century Christian mouth that we hear all too often from Islamist nut-jobs these days. Scott's heart is in the right place if indeed his aim is to warn us about the dangers of bloodthirsty fascist xenophobes wresting power from religious moderates, but I strongly suspect that message will be lost on those who need to hear it most. Also stars Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, David Thewlis, Ghassan Massoud and Brendan Gleeson.

Kingdom of Heaven (R) opens May 6 at local theaters. Call to confirm. 1/2