Kingdom of Heaven [DVD] [2005]

I have the US version of this. Kingdom of Heaven was a better film that people gave it credit for but it certainly had flaws. The Directors Cut is far, far better- making this into a great film in my opinion. At least as good as Gladiator (in fact, if it weren't for the class injected by the late Oliver Reed into Gladiator, I'd say that Kingdom of Heaven DC is a far better film). The longer cut of the film gives far more time for characterisation and fills in quite a few of the blanks from the theatrical version of the film. This isn't just a few dodgy deleted scenes put back into the film- it's a completely different film with whole new areas of plot development. It's a first class effort and I'd urge anyone who even half liked the original version to buy it.

Kingdom of Heaven was probably my favorite film of last year, and the 194-minute director's cut gives the film more room to breathe, but it won't make converts of the unbelievers. Instead, it's a more leisurely paced version of the film for the faithful who liked the theatrical cut and want to revisit its world and characters in a little more detail. Closer in style and tone to sixties roadshows than Scott's Gladiator, and all the better for it, in many ways it's the richest and most ambitious of the recent batch of epics. It's more of a journey in the extended version, and a bloodier one (the added violence will please the gore hounds), although there are a few moments that tip over into self-indulgence and could have been tightened or omitted entirely.

The extended opening allows more character detail, but at the expense of more of Michael Sheen's caricatured greedy priest, now revealed as Balian's brother. Orlando Bloom's limitations are also given a little more room than they had in the theatrical cut, but he certainly never stoops to the lows of Gerard "I'm wonderful, me" Butler in Beowulf and Grendel, Colin Farrell's Alexander or Clive Owen's truly catastrophic non-performance in King Arthur that left that film with a void at its center. Edward Norton's performance as the Leper King suffers a little from using different takes than the theatrical version, and at least one of his expanded scenes is simply longer without really being any better than its equivalent in the shorter version. The real winner in the extra footage stakes is Eva Green, who I think I'm falling in love with and whose part is considerably expanded and much more complex, allowing her a mass of contradictory motives (few of them noble), impulses and emotions that were smoothed away in the theatrical version. The subplot involving her son also helps add more of an emotional charge to Baldwin's death, with the shot of his leprous face no longer gratuitous but essential. In fact, in this version of the film, there are even a couple of genuinely touching sequences.

While the added complexity in this cut is more in the characters than in the plot, some of the problems of the theatrical version have been addressed. The shipwreck is just as rushed in this cut as in the theatrical version, but the pacing problems in the astonishingly spectacular siege finale are much improved by the addition of a fairly minimal amount of footage. It no longer seems quite so hurried and there's more of a sense of the human cost after the battle at the Christopher Gate that was lacking in the shorter version by the simple expedient of including characters we briefly get to know among the dead. There IS one massive miscalculation after the siege where a redundant swordfight has been added: not only is it completely ineffective, dwarfed by the sheer scale and weight of what has come before, but it's also unnecessary, winding up a plot point no-one cares about any more and simply underlining the events of the previous scene.

It also now comes with added Bill Paterson, which is rarely a bad thing, especially since his brief scene as a compassionate Bishop establishes the incompatibility of fanatical adherence to religious law with the actions of a loving savior that is one of the film's major themes. Although most of the Christian clerics here are transparent hypocrites, they are also counterbalanced by David Thewlis' Knight Hospitaler just as the `good' Muslims are counterbalanced by fanatics as both Saladin and Baldwin have to walk a tightrope with their own people to prevent war.

Thanks to a strong script this is easily Scott's best film since Blade Runner. Unlike Gladiator it doesn't feel like it was written on the hoof, and he has enough confidence in the material not to overdo the stylistics at the expense of the storytelling: here the visuals serve the picture, which isn't always the case in his past work. Even John Mathieson, probably the worst cinematographer to ever win an Oscar, finally delivers the goods. CGI is used sparingly and very effectively when it is (none of the poor FX problems that plagued parts of Gladiator here, thankfully). Instead, much of the spectacle is shot for real - not only is it usually cheaper, but it's certainly a lot more impressive to look at.

The transfer quality is not as good as on the theatrical version, but it's more than acceptable. While Blu-ray buyers get shafted with only a single trailer, the extra features on the 4-disc DVD set are impressive, including a deeply depressed screenwriter mulling over its US failure. Of the additional deleted scenes included as extras, there's nothing that needed to go back into the picture: most are ideas that didn't really work while a couple are just plain silly. The DVD also includes an interesting collection of trailers and TV spots that try to sell it as everything from The Passion of the Christ II in an outrageous piece of false advertising involving adding a "Don't worry, God is with me" line of dialog not in the film (particularly ironic considering its Humanist viewpoint and the crisis of faith of its hero), a family movie, an epic adventure, a country and western rock video and a kick-ass heavy metal teen bloodbath: anything to avoid mentioning Muslims or, God forbid, history. Can't think why this didn't take off at the US box-office...

Last year Ridley Scott returned to the world of period epics with Kingdom of Heaven, his chronicle of Christian forces' defeat in Jerusalem at the hands of Muslims during the 12th Century. The original theatrical cut, was released May 2005 to underwhelming critical acclaim and disappointing box office returns. The end result was that Fox announced that Scott's Director's Cut, featuring at least 45 minutes of additional footage, will be released May 23, 2006, probably to compensate for the lost money.

I was particulary disturbed to hear the prospect of an even longer interpretation of William Monahan's screenplay. But after watching the full 4 disks of this Director's Cut revealed not only that my doubts were unwarranted, but that Scott has lost none of his talent for telling stories; because Kingdom of Heaven: The Director's Cut is not just a movie that has earned a few extra points in rating's, but one of Ridley Scott's best, and moreover, a film that deserves its place in cinema history.

Kingdom of Heaven's great strength is its intelligence, and these extra 45 minutes of film restore its IQ to genius levels after its predecessor drooled its way to a pitiful $47 million in bills.
If you haven't seen Kingdom of Heaven, make sure you rent or buy the 4-disc edition. If you've seen the old cut, let the movie redeem itself and buy this masterful 4-disc edition. Ridley Scott has created some fine films in the past, including Alien, Black Hawk Down, and Gladiator -- with this new cut, Kingdom of Heaven can proudly join that group. I highly recommend this edition of the film.