Where have all the world conquerors gone? Rather, where are all the actors compelling enough to play them? In a string of historical epics (and epic flops), larger-than-life historical or mythological figures from King Arthur to Achilles to Alexander the Great have failed to be suitably larger-than-life, in part because of the films they inhabited, but in part because of the actors inhabiting them. Although I may like them in certain films, Clive Owen, Brad Pitt, and Colin Farrell are simply not grand and mesmerizing enough to play truly grand characters.

Now, I know that these people, in reality, may have looked pretty ordinary. If I were asked to pick Julius Caesar out of a police lineup, I may fail. If Alexander the Great were to deliver my pizza, I'd probably tip him exactly the same amount that I tip all the other pizza guys ($3). But there's a difference between reality and the movies. Epic heroes should come across as heroic and, well, epic. Just as Saladin shouldn't look like the payroll clerk at a carpet factory, the defender of Jerusalem facing him down shouldn't look like the handsome college dude who makes my lattes at Starbucks.

Orlando Bloom, who stars as Balian, defender of Jerusalem against Saladin, probably makes a good latte, but I can't see him inspiring anyone to charge into battle, let alone charge an extra brownie to go with that latte. It's not a matter of being handsome or rugged, although he certainly has one of those attributes (guess which one). For example, Kenneth Branagh is not particularly rugged, but he was entirely suitable to play Henry V in his film of the same name. It's a matter of charisma and conviction: Ken has it, and Orlando doesn't. He's an ordinary guy—surfer-dude handsome, but so are a lot of people.

Perhaps he could have played the part to the last row of the theater, stomping and spitting. Perhaps Ridley Scott, like the directors of many recent historical epics, wanted to show that yes, he's ordinary, and ordinary people can be heroic, that situations create leaders, that blacksmiths can inspire armies to charge off into certain death. And that's fine—I think I agree with him. But if you're going to give us a blacksmith elevated to surrogate King of the Holy Land, he shouldn't come across as a blacksmith the whole time. (Now that you mention it, he wasn't all that convincing as a blacksmith either, with his spindly arms and flowing locks.) A better choice for the lead is there in the film, but he's hiding behind a silver mask. Edward Norton, who has the charisma and conviction to play a leader, plays one, but one who's on his last legs. He's Baldwin, the leper king of Jerusalem, and Balian has sworn to fight for him until he dies, and to continue fighting thereafter.

How Balian goes from blacksmith to battlefield hero is presented in an offhand, even perfunctory manner. It's like Scott had a checklist to get him from the suicide of his wife to the walls of Jerusalem. Crusader knight father (Liam Neeson) back from the Holy Land? Check. Father killed by baddies, knighting his bastard son and receiving his last rites in the same breath? Check. Shack up with the hottie (Eva Green) who's going to be queen of Jerusalem when her brother dies and by the way she's married to your biggest enemy (Marton Csokas) who wants to start a war with the Muslims? Check. There's no sensation that a significant amount of time has passed; the film has the uncomfortable feel of a really eventful weekend trip.

On the battle front, Scott has taken his incomprehensibly choppy camera and editing style from Gladiator and Black Hawk Down and made it worse. It's an annoying mix of super-fast and slo-mo shots, pausing for garish gouts of blood and churning earth under horses' feet, using a camera technique that David Edelstein of Slate.com described as "rotoscoping," a description that turned out to be incorrect but oddly descriptive. All of this takes place in the middle of acres of CGI soldiers marching or riding toward or away from CGI battlements or other CGI soldiers.

Pundits waited with bated breath, wondering how Scott and company would handle the political powder keg of the Crusades. I think he managed acceptably well, but he couldn't avoid having everyone sound like 21st-century humanists discussing the Islam Question and the Palestine Question. Baldwin the King is portrayed as basically a weak ruler who can't control the racist elements (Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson) on his team. The bad guys murder hundreds of Muslims, forcing the Muslim leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud, a wonderfully understated actor whom I might follow into battle) to prepare for war. Saladin, who was in real life a good guy, is also a reasonable one, and more than willing to negotiate, but the bad elements among the Christians force his hand—and even then he's still reasonable. The Christians, at least those with official ties to the Church, are almost all portrayed as corrupt, but Balian and Tiberias (Jeremy Irons) serve as a sort of pan-theistic good-time crew; upon hearing Muslim prayers for the first time, Balian observes with a smug smile, "They sound just like ours." You'll want to wear a knight's helmet to avoid being clunked on the head with all the Important Messages this film has to impart.

Through it all, this film isn't particularly good, but it isn't particularly bad. It's made with a certain level of skill, but it never grabs you the way a good epic should. It's only a little miscast—poor Orlando Bloom is surrounded by people who do, indeed, belong in historical epics—but it's miscast enough to leave us searching in vain for someone to seize on as a heroic hero. It's strident, and yet it's too careful by half. You come away thinking that if Scott and company had taken a risk—any risk at all—they might have made something to remember. As it stands, I'll forget about this by the end of the summer.