Kingdom of Heaven DVD Review (Orlando Bloom) Empire Movies

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN DVD REVIEW

Kingdom of Heaven
(Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment)

The Movie

The Extras

Reviewed by

6/10

7.5/10

Liam

In Kingdom of Heaven, Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a blacksmith who one day receives a visit from his father (Liam Neeson), a man who before now he didn't even know existed. Plucked from obscurity, Balian goes with his father who is central to an ongoing Holy War over Jerusalem. Soon, Balian becomes a knight, befriends some powerful people and makes enemies of those who are equally as powerful. Since Balian is convinced that God doesn't like him, he sees no point in participating in a Holy War. But, when events are put into motion where battle is inevitable, Balian must rise to the occasion and defend the people of Jerusalem, the "Kingdom of Heaven". Of course, being an epic that runs more than 2 hours, there's a whole lot more that goes on but those are the basics.

Let's face it. The "sword and sandal" epic genre has run its course. There was Braveheart, which in my opinion remains one of the better movies in the last several years. Then, there was Gladiator, which was very good. Then last year saw Troy, which was okay but didn't do nearly as well as people thought it would. Now, there's Kingdom of Heaven, which as we all know was a box office disaster. (Okay, recouped its money in overseas box office earnings, but in North America, the movie was a commercial flop. Some might even call its failure epic.) Which makes me wonder -- did Kingdom of Heaven fail because it was a bad movie or because people are sick and tired of the genre?

Okay, the movie didn't really suck all that bad. So why such a colossal failure? Well, I'm of the belief that adult audiences just aren't ready for Orlando Bloom as a leading man. Mel Gibson in Braveheart? Yes. Russell Crowe in Gladiator? Yes. Brad Pitt in Troy? Sort of. But Orlando Bloom? This is an adult movie. He's the stuff that teen magazines are made of. And forgive me for saying, but I can't imagine a lot of teenage girls being interested in checking out Kingdom of Heaven.

This 2-disc DVD comes with a number of special features. On the first disc, we get the feature film presented with a great DTS 5.1 track. There's also a text commentary providing referential tidbits for all those interested in a little history lesson -- or for those interested in gathering information for a school paper. There are also previews for a couple of other Fox titles and an Inside Look at yet another sword and sandal flick that is soon doomed to box office failure, Tristan and Isolde starring James Franco? (For those asking "James who?", he's best known for his role in the Spider-Man movies.) No audio commentary on this DVD.

Slip disc 2 into your player and you're first treated to an "Interactive Production Grid" which brings you behind-the-scenes and allows you to explore the movie from several different angles. You can look at the directing, the crew and the cast -- and you can look at each from the perspective of pre-production, production and post-production. There's also a Play All function. Next are a couple of mini-documentaries ("History vs. Hollywood" courtesy of The History Channel and "Movie Real" presented by A&E) both of which which look at the events of the movie vs. what we know happened for real. These provide a lot of background information with the help of some historians and are also entertaining, featuring interviews with several people involved in the making of the movie. What do you know? A history lesson can be fun!! Following this we get several Internet Featurettes which are great if you haven't downloaded them already and also the film's theatrical trailer.

Again, the movie wasn't all that bad -- it just wasn't great. I didn't really care about the characters, there wasn't a lot of emotion and none of the battles particularly excited me. Looking at the DVD now, the only real thing that's of any interest are the mini-documentaries. Which makes me think. Maybe if they had put as much effort into the actual movie to provide some historical context as they did in these special features, the movie would've been a whole lot better.

Features
"The Pilgrim's Guide" Text Commentary, Interactive Production Grid, "Movie Real: Kingdom of Heaven" As Seen on the A&E Network, "History vs. Hollywood: Kingdom of Heaven" As Seen on The History Channel, 4 Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes, Theatrical Trailer

Video
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Audio
English 5.1 DTS, English 5.1 Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround

Subtitles
English, Spanish, Closed-Captioned

Release Date
October 11, 2005

Rating
R/14A

Length
144 mins.

Email Liam About This Review:

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

The information entered on this page will not be used to send unsolicited email
and will not be sold to a third party. Please refer to our Privacy Policy.