Kingdom of Heaven directors cut - picture quality

[Carlson2005]

I just received this this morning, and while the extras package is very impressive, from what I've seen so far the image quality on the feature itself seems surprisingly weak. It's not bad, but it is rather soft, as if the whole thing had been sourced from a video source rather than from the original neg. Compared to the theatrical version, which had very good picture quality, it's even more of a disappointment. Not fatal, but a little irritating.

Anyone else think the same?

[AndyDursin]

The supplements seem to confirm it was assembled on video from what I could tell...

[Eric W.]

I guess I'll treat this the same way I have Gladiator.

I still watch the earlier DVD of Gladiator because it has DTS and the newer one does not. However, I still bought that newer Gladiator for all the specials.

I'll simply do the same here.

[MarkB]

The supplements seem to confirm it was assembled on video from what I could tell...

Andy (or Carlson2005), can you provide any specifics? This version did get a theatrical release, so I would think that there should have been a film source available. (I haven't had a chance to sit down and take a look at it yet. I'm hoping to this weekend.)

Mark

[MikeSkerritt]

Hey Trev, what did you think of the cut itself? I saw the theatrical version last year and liked it in spite of the fact that it seemed severely truncated. I've heard the new version is a vast improvement.

EDIT: Just read Andy's review, but I'm still curious to know what you think

[AndyDursin]

The supplements seem to confirm it was assembled on video from what I could tell...

Andy (or Carlson2005), can you provide any specifics? This version did get a theatrical release, so I would think that there should have been a film source available. (I haven't had a chance to sit down and take a look at it yet. I'm hoping to this weekend.)

Mark

Mark, scratch what I said, you're right it did play theatrically. Obviously it was assembled digitally (as evidenced by the lengthy editorial segments).

Mike, if you enjoyed the theatrical cut at all I would certainly give it a shot. It just wasn't my cup of tea, I couldn't get into it even on multiple viewings, but the story most definitely flows smoother.

[MikeSkerritt]

Mike, if you enjoyed the theatrical cut at all I would certainly give it a shot. It just wasn't my cup of tea, I couldn't get into it even on multiple viewings, but the story most definitely flows smoother.

Hey Andy,

I liked what I saw a lot, I just think it would've felt shorter had it run longer, you know what I mean?

[Carlson2005]

["MikeSkerritt"]Hey Trev, what did you think of the cut itself? I saw the theatrical version last year and liked it in spite of the fact that it seemed severely truncated. I've heard the new version is a vast improvement.

EDIT: Just read Andy's review, but I'm still curious to know what you think

Well, if you've got half an hour to spare...

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 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, Colin Farrell’s Alexander or Clive Owen’s truly catastrophic 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 (David Thewlis in good film shock!) 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 extra features on the 4-disc set are impressive (or what I’ve seen of them), 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…


And, just for completism's sake, my thoughts on the theatical version:

Kingdom of Heaven turns out to be Ridley Scott’s best film since Blade Runner, largely because for once his visuals are matched with a pretty good script that doesn’t feel like an afterthought. While most critics, aware of the longer director’s cut on the horizon, found it rushed, I had no such problem: true, the film has the quickest shipwreck in screen history and the love story quickly disappears (a shame, because Eva Green gives the film a lightness it otherwise lacks), but for the most part it’s journey is well told. Nor is it overly politically correct – the Muslims might be more honorable than some of the Crusaders, but that doesn’t make them any less ruthless. Its biggest structural problem is the siege finale, which for all the impressive visuals pales besides Orlando’s last couple of efforts at the battlements, The Two Towers and Troy, and unfortunately feels rushed and underpowered and ultimately overstylized. We’re never in the thick of it, either emotionally or visually.

For a film about religious and moral ideals, it’s a curiously untriumphant epic dealing with the failure of reason and compromise. Even it’s hero’s attempts to live a decent life becomes a part of that failure: when offered the chance to save the city from war and get the girl, his knightly code will not allow him, condemning the people of Jerusalem to war. That, and the fact that it’s a film about a loser may well be part of the reason for the film’s failure to find an audience in America, but it’s also one of the things that makes it so interesting. Even though it’s full of historical errors, it does encompass the ebb and flow of a state of mind in a point in history surprisingly well.

Orlando Bloom is far from disastrous even if he’s not quite good enough. He does the grim and serious stuff well, but he doesn’t offer much else: there’s no light or shade to the performance, just a conscientiousness that isn’t exactly wrong for the character but still leaves you hoping for something more as the third act comes along. If he’s not exactly two-dimensional, he does at least manage one-and-a-half more dimensions than Clive Owen did in King Arthur and never embarrasses himself as much as Colin Farrell did in parts of Alexander. The supporting cast are mostly on good form, although Edward Norton seems to be doing Anthony Zerbe’s leper turn from Papillon as the dying king.

Shot largely with real extras for all but the largest crowd scenes, which plays real dividends here. Aside from giving you a sense of a world outside the main characters, it also highlights one of the real limitations of CGi extras: their failure to interact with the elements. It doesn’t feel like a computer game but a conflict involving real people, which helps ground the story and give it a sense of weight. John Mathieson’s photography is infinitely superior to his overpraised work on Gladiator even though he does overdo the dreariness of Europe. (I was bemused to note among the camera operators an extremely unsupportive and massively unimaginative lighting cameraman who made my life hell on a disastrous short film I made years ago with his constant time-wasting insistence on avoiding ‘bad film grammar’: working for such an idiosyncratic visual stylist as Scott must have paid him back a thousand fold for all the pains he inflicted on me!)

Harry Gregson-Williams’ score is competent, but it’s telling that much of the film needed to be scored with several cues from Graeme Revell’s Crow, Marco Beltrani’s Blade and, most effectively in the “Rise a knight” sequence, Jerry Goldsmith’s Valhalla prayer from The 13th Warrior, which spurred me on to see that particular film again.

[MikeSkerritt]

Wow, that's very insightful and just what I was looking for. Thanks, man!

I thought the film suffered largely because of Bloom's bland central performance, but was an otherwise satisfying effort with great supporting performances and an unusually literate script, the best Scott's had to work with in quite some time.

[Carlson2005]

I thought the film suffered largely because of Bloom's bland central performance

After Farrell's turn in Alexander and Owen's atrocious I'll-say-the-lines-but-I-won't-put-any-effort-into-it King Arthur, which has become my benchmark for the worst 'acting' ever seen in a major studio picture, at least Bloom doesn't make watching his every scene a moment of torture even if he is little more than this decade's young Tony Curtis or Tab Hunter!

[Eric W.]

I finally watched this last night and I think the Director's Cut is a superior version of the film in every respect.

I do wish someone had been cast besides Bloom in the leading role, but he's serviceable enough.


I do agree with Carlson that there clearly is a picture quality issue of sorts. I felt like picture was just lacking in a certain clarity, vibrance, and overall zing.

[MikeSkerritt]

... at least Bloom doesn't make watching his every scene a moment of torture ...

I'd have to agree with that. It's not that I actively disliked him (to be honest he did better with the role than I was expecting), I just thought it was vanilla.

[AndyDursin]

... at least Bloom doesn't make watching his every scene a moment of torture ...

I'd have to agree with that. It's not that I actively disliked him (to be honest he did better with the role than I was expecting), I just thought it was vanilla.

I don't hate Bloom -- I liked him in PIRATES just fine, but he really has a lack of charisma in movies like KINGDOM and ELIZABETHTOWN...he doesn't provide a strong enough presence to hook you in. It's like you completely forget he's even on-screen, and that's not a good thing when he's the lead.

[Eric W.]

... at least Bloom doesn't make watching his every scene a moment of torture ...

I'd have to agree with that. It's not that I actively disliked him (to be honest he did better with the role than I was expecting), I just thought it was vanilla.

I don't hate Bloom -- I liked him in PIRATES just fine, but he really has a lack of charisma in movies like KINGDOM and ELIZABETHTOWN...he doesn't provide a strong enough presence to hook you in. It's like you completely forget he's even on-screen, and that's not a good thing when he's the lead.

Exactly right.

The making of discs are outstanding on this as well, btw.

For the record: This Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven is the version that should have been released in the first place, from the theater on through.

I have no problems calling this version of KoH the best film of 2005, at the very least, quite honestly.

It's one of the movies I've seen in a while, to be sure.