Concept: A town blacksmith finds himself becoming a major player in the Christian/Muslim religious, political, and military conflicts surrounding Jerusalem during the Crusades.

• • Very, very good epic movie, one step from greatness.
  • That step was probably Orlando Bloom, who plays the main character. He’s not bad at all, he’s OK, but OK doesn’t cut it well when you’re acting alongside such luminaries as Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons and all the other major cast members who are on their same level.
  • Today, Bloom has a lot more screen presence and stature, as you can tell in his recent movie “The Outpost;” today’s Orlando Bloom would have done much better in the “Kingdom” role and would have been on par with everybody else, but the Bloom of 17 years ago, well…
  • The only version you should see of this move is this Director’s Cut, which is the original version of the movie before studio demands forced the removal of around 45 minutes of film and made the movie incoherent.
  • Those focus groups. Using focus groups for movies tend to make them manufactured products and not art. This movie may weigh in at slightly more than 3 hours but it has very little fat. Take almost any small piece out and suddenly you’ve taken out something important. And the removal of 45 minutes took out a whole lot. See the full Director’s Cut only. If it’s less than 3 hours, it’s not the Director’s Cut.
  • This is a very intelligent, historical, action-filled drama.
  • It treats both the Christian and Muslim religions with equal respect, showing devout followers, extremists, and hypocrites on both sides.
  • This movie has the best battle scenes that I remember ever seeing in a movie, and I have seen a lot of war movies. And the drama that intercuts the action gives the battles their heft.
  • Being medieval battles, the movie showcases war devices similar to what was used in “The Two Towers” from the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. It’s interesting to compare the two. Ultimately, some of the fantastical elements in LOTR battles made them less impactful than the realism of the “Kingdom of Heaven” ones.
  • I figure they must have used at least some CGI in Kingdom of Heaven, but whatever they did holds up even today. It’s well-integrated and judiciously-used, if it’s there at all, so that you can’t really differentiate between CGI and non-CGI. That’s a huge accomplishment for a movie made 17 years ago. The same can’t be said for the Lord of the Rings movies, made at about the same time. The LOTR trilogy is great, but you have to do some suspension of belief because Gollum and other strong uses of CGI clearly appear as CGI today, even though they seemed so real at the time the movies were made.
  • Viewed on an Optoma HD28DSE projector, 92” screen, Roku on Hulu. Looked great on the projector.
  • Not for kids.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005) 88%