Kingdom of Heaven, 2005.
Directed by Ridley Scott.
Starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, and Liam Neeson.
SYNOPSIS:
If you’re a fan of Ridley Scott’s religious epic Kingdom of Heaven, then you probably know it’s out on 4K Ultra HD and digital. Not only does it sport a brand-new 4K restoration, but it also ports over the huge mountain of bonus features that were included with previous releases. I received a code for a digital copy for this review.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this: sometimes, a movie just leaves me feeling “Meh.” In the case of Ridley Scott’s sweeping epic Kingdom of Heaven, I can appreciate the skill and craftsmanship that’s shown on the screen, and, of course, the director’s cut is by far the superior experience, but nothing in this film really grabbed me.
Orlando Bloom stars as Balian of Ibelin, a seemingly simple blacksmith living in a small village in medieval France. He struggles with the memory of his wife, who committed suicide after giving birth to a stillborn child.
When a group of Crusaders arrive and ask him to return to Jerusalem, the Holy Land (also known as the “kingdom of heaven” referenced by the film’s title) to be with his father, Baron Godfrey (Liam Neeson), he turns them down. However, he changes his mind after he discovers that his half-brother, a priest, had his wife’s corpse beheaded before burial, in accordance with an insane religious tenet.
Balian kills his half-brother and undertakes the perilous journey to Jerusalem, stopping to see his father along the way. In the Holy Land, he ends up mired in conflicts between its leader, the leper King Baldwin IV (Edward Norton), and Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), who wants to rule the city and has aligned with the Templar Knights to break the tenuous peace between the Crusader States and Sultan Saladin (Ghassan Massoud).
Balian tries to stay out of royal politics, choosing instead to take over the estate he inherited at Ibelin and helping its residents irrigate the land and grow much-needed crops. King Baldwin IV’s sister, Princess Sibylla (Eva Green), who is Guy’s wife and mother of a boy from an earlier relationship, visits Balian and the pair become romantically entangled, which, of course, causes further complications with his situation.
All of those tensions create the perfect environment for all-out war, and Scott puts the movie’s reported $130 million budget on the screen as he depicts a massive assault on Jerusalem. (Yes, I glossed over several plot points, but I don’t want to spoil anything.) The size and scope of the battle is easily on par with the battles in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
An epilogue notes: “Nearly a thousand years later, peace in the Kingdom of Heaven still remains elusive.” And twenty years since this film’s release, it remains even more elusive, to the point that I truly don’t believe there’s any solution to all the fighting. When various groups insist that only they can occupy the Holy Land, well, I don’t know how you solve that situation.
Kingdom of Heaven was recently issued on 4K Ultra HD, and my understanding is that the presentation is spectacular. I only received a digital copy for this review, so I can’t speak for the disc, but I was fine with how it looked on my TV.
Unlike the discs, however, the digital version gives you access to the vastly inferior theatrical version, which I suppose is worth watching from the perspective of filmmaking craftsmanship. Comparing the two certainly shows how a movie like this suffers when you chop about 40 minutes off its runtime. (If you’re wondering about the “director’s cut roadshow” version, it’s simply the director’s cut with an overture, intermission, and exit music added, making the film feel more like an epic from Hollywood’s golden age.)
Ridley Scott recorded an introduction to the director’s cut. The rest of the extras include:
• Three commentary tracks: Available only for the roadshow version of the director’s cut, these three highly informative chats feature Scott, Bloom, and writer William Monahan; Executive Producer Lisa Ellzey, Visual Effects Supervisor Wesley Sewell and First Assistant Director Adam Somner; and Film Editor Cody Dorn.
• The Path to Redemption (139 minutes): Comprised of six sections, this comprehensive documentary charts the making of Kingdom of Heaven from the early days of development to its release, with a decidedly religious motif added to the proceedings. (Yeah, it’s a bit heavy-handed, but apparently Ridley Scott was annoyed that some people didn’t understand that he was making a movie about religion.)
• Production Sequence (83 minutes): Sliced into four chapters, this extra serves up even more making-of content. Despite its name, it actually covers pre-production through release. You really can’t accuse Ridley Scott of shirking his duty when it comes to bonus content for his movies; he’s been heavily involved in that kind of stuff for a long time, and it’s always appreciated by the fans.
An archive offering a bunch of featurettes rounds out this release. It’s the kind of material that you often find as the sole extras on many studio discs or digital releases these days, and here it’s just even more frosting on a very rich cake.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
