Eva Green rules the much longer, much better director’s cut of Kingdom Of Heaven
Film Features Kingdom Of Heaven
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With the fabled Snyder Cut improbably making its way to HBO Max this week, we’re looking back on other significant directors’ cuts.
Kingdom Of Heaven, director’s cut (2005)
Ridley Scott’s fondness for crafting director’s cuts of his films is well-known at this point; seven different versions of Blade Runner will pretty much secure one’s reputation as a tinkerer. But none of the differences Scott has incorporated into nearly a dozen entries in his filmography are more profound than those made to 2005’s Kingdom Of Heaven. The 144-minute theatrical cut was a bore, with a post-Lord Of The Rings Orlando Bloom doing his best Aragorn impression. But Scott’s director’s cut brims with guilt, intimacy, and sensuality. You can thank Eva Green for that.
Outside her appearance in The Dreamers, Green was a relative unknown when Scott cast her as Sibylla, the 12th-century Queen of Jerusalem, whose family captured the city for the Christians. She would bounce upward into global fame with Casino Royale and Penny Dreadful, and languished for years in Tim Burton’s cinematic universe. But before all that, she carved out a space for herself in the nearly exclusively male cast of Kingdom Of Heaven.
Written by William Monahan, who also penned Scott’s Body Of Lies, Kingdom Of Heaven arrived five years after the director’s Oscar-winning Gladiator, and suffered immediately from comparisons. No matter that Gladiator was a revenge story set during the Roman Empire, while Kingdom Of Heaven was a love story set during the Crusades. No matter that Gladiator had only a passing interest in how the Roman Empire was run, while Kingdom Of Heaven devoted a great deal of time to exploring the different religious customs and military methodologies of Christians and Muslims. Of course, that element only really became clear in Scott’s director’s cut, which was made widely available on DVD in 2006, allowing everyone to see the film’s many obscured merits.
Restored scenes illuminate the disgust blacksmith Balian (Bloom) has for Christianity and its rigid notions of heaven and hell—a core character quality that becomes increasingly important as the film unfurls. Arthur Max’s production design is better honored during lengthier, bloodier battle set pieces. Most engrossingly, a much more prominent role in the narrative is bestowed upon Green’s Sibylla, the mother of a sick child and the beleaguered wife of a barbarian. In a film with so much brutality performed in the name of God, Sibylla’s personal sacrifices hit hardest.
Also, to be superficial for a second? Green is absurdly gorgeous in this movie, and costume designer Janty Yates plays up her otherworldly beauty with elaborate outfits inspired by traditional Middle Eastern fashions. Queen Sibylla never walks anywhere, Green haughtily says, so all her outfits befit her status, whether she’s riding her white stallion into Balian’s compound, addressing the citizens of Jerusalem, or sharing a quieter moment with her son (Alexander Potts) or her brother, the “Leper King” Baldwin IV (Edward Norton, underneath a metal mask). In silk of burnt orange and amber, gauzy headscarves festooned with pearls and coins, or a coronation outfit of heavy embroidery and brocade (topped with a gold cage for her hair!), Green is purposefully exoticized in this role as a reminder of Sibylla’s regality. Yet in the theatrical version of Kingdom Of Heaven, exotic is basically all she is: an esteemed prize fought over by Balian, who becomes her lover, and by her husband, the power-hungry Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas).
Sibylla is striking in the first version of the film, but primarily inert. She falls in love with Balian and basically disappears from the action until tensions between the Christians and Muslims churn into renewed war. The director’s cut adds a harrowing subplot that gives Green space to work once Sibylla realizes that her beloved son is also sick with leprosy. Green’s shock when she sees him fail to react to hot wax spilled on his hand freezes her whole body rigid; later, as she watches doctors perform tests on her son, her face twists into a frenzy of desperation and fear. Scott centers Green’s Sibylla as she tries to tamp down rumors about her child before deciding to save him from the pain she saw her brother endure, and her devastated, determined, dialogue-less Claudius moment is the finest bit of acting in the film.
After that scene, Sibylla is a woman transformed by personal loss and disinterested in defending the city that was once her birthright. Her arc is the only one in Kingdom Of Heaven that rivals Balian’s—and, arguably, surpasses it. Very little of this film’s version of Sibylla fits the historical record, but that doesn’t detract from the impact of Green’s performance or the emotional weight it provides to what is arguably Scott’s last masterpiece.
Availability: The director’s cut of Kingdom Of Heaven is available to rent or purchase digitally from Amazon.
95 Comments
Eva Green pretty much rules whatever she is in.
I’m going to star this even though it has the addition of a qualifier.
You could have stopped at Eva Green rules.
I know right? You didn’t need to write about Kingdom of Heaven if you wanted to talk about how she is a fantastic actress. But hey I’m not complaining.
Obligatory “AV Club needs an editor” quote.
Her hotness feels like an anachronism in an age where everyone had fucked up teeth and didn’t shower.
That would have been more succinct and still completely accurate, however, I never knew that I’d crave a scene where Eva Green reacts to her on-screen child having leprosy but now I will have to hunt the internet until I find that director’s cut.
I feel like people way overstate how much “tinkering” Scott has done in regards to the multiple versions of Blade Runner that have come out over the years – one version was a workprint that he wasn’t involved in the public release of and is something that every film has, the US and European Cuts are the same movie without the cuts for violence to get an R in the US. The “Director’s Cut” and the “no really this is the actual preferred version”-Final Cut are the closest you could get to obsessive tinkering, but Scott signed off the 1992 cut without direct supervision, so it’s somewhat justified.
He’s also done several director’s cuts since then, including this one, so safe to say that on some level, it’s working for him and he’s leaned into the rep, even if that 1992 director’s cut wasn’t exactly his work.
Gladiators extended version has an into from him where he basically just says “The cut I put in theaters is the directors cut. This is just some extra scenes I removed that you might like.” And then he and Russell Crowe talk about how awesome they both are for three hours
And they’re not always wholly unnecessary Directors Cuts either: sometimes they are, as with say Alien, where they basically commissioned a new edit of the film from him for the novelty value (not that I have any objection to the director’s cut); but Blade Runner seemed to me to require a definitive statement of vision from the director because of the competing versions of the film (which is also not to say that I object to anyone’s preference for other cuts either; simply that in that film’s case it helps to know what the director wanted). And Kingdom Of Heaven required a DC even moreso owing to the entirely baffling fact that in 2005 Scott was still subject to studio tinkering and lack of confidence in his weird, layered visions for things. Scott’s made a lot of trash but he’s certainly unique enough to warrant the opportunity to understand what he thinks his films ought to look like. So this may well be on me more than the author but I object to the term “tinkerer” just because I think it carries an implication of unnecessary meddling. Lucas is a tinkerer, I think Scott is just keen on final cut.
It’s funny that in that clip with so many well known actors, the one I zeroed in on was the gravedigger. I hadn’t gotten to the correct entry in IMDB before it came to me on its own. Spider Nugent from Coronation Street, Emily’s hippy nephew. Maybe I wasted all those years I spent watching Coro, but you can’t say it didn’t make an impression.
Yeah the right tends to lionize the Crusades as this grand battle between Christianity and Islam. Mostly it was just a bunch of mass murder and at least one instance of cannibalism, most of which wasn’t even in The Middle East. The First Crusade got started because of a miscommunication between Pope Urban II and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I. Emperor Alexios just wanted some mercenaries to help take back some territory in Anatolia that was taken by the Seljuqs. Pope Urban, likely thinking it’d help mend the Schism, decided he’d use this opportunity to get a Holy War going.Now, Pope Urban and Alexios assumed that they’d be getting wealthy nobleman with their own armies and supplies. Instead they got The People’s Crusade which was an angry mob of pilgrims who spent most of their time pillaging their way to Constantinople and killing Jews wherever they went. When they got to Anatolia, the Seljuks almost immediately routed them.The People’s Crusade did have one benefit though: The Seljuks so easily defeated them that they grossly underestimated second wave of The First Crusade, known as The Princes Crusade. They also did a bunch of mass murder and, on one occasion, did some cannibalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Ma%27arra).I could have gotten some stuff wrong so feel free to correct me.
Not sure you got anything wrong, but any mention of the Crusades’ silliness needs to mention the Fourth Crusade, where they end up sacking CHRISTIAN Constantinople rather than their originally intended Muslim targets. This ends up greatly weakening the Byzantine empire, which contributes to them being destroyed and replaced by the [Muslim] Ottomans!
Way to go, warriors for Christ!
All part of Q’s plan
We live in a society where we drink Smirnoff Ice from our Smirnoff-Ice-Glass!
#TheStorm
I know. The fall of Constantinople is always mentioned in far right corners as the possible fall of Western Civilization. Yeah it fell in part due to assholes from the west attacking it.
Hmm — kind of like how the insurrection by Trumpers back in January is denied to be such by the very people who spurred them on….
Coincidentally, Constantinople just so happens to be the place the Horses of St. Mark were originally from. Venice was “gifted” it right after the sacking. How the convenient for the Byznatine’s economic rival to wind up with such lovely pieces of art.
Notice how rarely the 4th crusade is mentioned. The one where the Catholic knight’s slaughtered Orthodox Christians in Constantinople? Yeah… I wonder why.
primarily for money and jools and lulz. Mostly because the Venetians encouraged the entire thing in part because of their mistreatment by the Romans a few years before.
Actually, IIRC, the Crusaders were short on money to hire ships to take them to Egypt. So the Venetians made a deal with them to give them a discount if they took the city of Zara for them. Than, because they were short on cash from having to spend most of their money on the ships, a Byzantine Prince offered to hire them to depose his brother. But it turns out the guy who hired them didn’t have the money so the Crusaders sacked Constantinople.
Yeah to explain how the hell this happened, one needs a bloody flowchart.
Good one, Tyler “Bio” Rodriguez!“Bloody flowchart…”
Not sure what school you went to, but in the Catholic high school I attended, the 4th Crusade got the most attention in history class, mainly because it had the most severe long-term consequences.
Something to do with “Filioque” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Filioque_controversy ) — or so says James Burke of CONNECTIONS and THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED fame.
I see Kinja still hasn’t fixed the link problem….
Helluva Job, Kinja!
King Richard: I…may have commited some light cannibalism.
Apparently, he was lionhearted and iron-stomached.
Sinking of the Ship, Take 12!
My favorite thing from the Crusades histories is how the Christians in the East, Latin or Greek, always ended up with a much different attitude than the ones coming from the West.You had generations of Christians living in (relative) peace with Muslims and Jews, just making a living. Then a bunch of French and Germans show up, go, “WTF is THIS bullshit?” and impose their own view of the proper order of things. Then fifty years go by and the Western Christians assimilate and new generations are born and get back to just making a damn living. Then a bunch of French and Germans show up, go, “WTF is THIS bullshit?” and impose their own view of the proper order of things. Then another fifty years go by…And this just keeps going over and over again. All those poor SOBs in Acre and Ascalon and Damietta didn’t give all that much of a damn who was in charge, but had to keep dealing with all of that almost-continuous upheaval.
Your message hit me hard. It is so representative of what happens in any culture all the time : people managed to live together in (as you said, relative) peace, then some self-righteous idiots come and ruin this fragile and slowly progressing peace by imposing their ideas on both sides.Look at what is happening in Western Europe right now : while we had finally managed toslow down racism and to make more and more people of different origins live together, some people decided they had the higher moral ground and actively ruined that by imposing their vision of everybody not able to get on.It’s a good lesson to learn : when someone tries to convince you that you can’t get on with others (for any reason), tell them to STFU and ask them to take part in the general endeavor, instead of trying ruin it…
You’re definitely correct that many people, especially those on the right who focus on atrocities the Muslims committed and conveniently ignore the ones that the Christians did, and how those supposedly pious fellas sacked and plundered everything they could get their hands on while also crucifying and dismembering at a wild rate. However, during this huge theatre of carnage, there was a mutual respect team-up between Sultan al-Kamil and St. Francis and while a lot of the “canon” biographies of St. Francis have a bunch of obvious nonsense included in there, I recently read a book, “The Saint and the Sultan” by Paul Moses and he details how their upbringing led them both on the path to religious tolerance and their meeting, despite any apocrypha and conjecture, totally happened and probably resulted in al-Kamil offering so many favorable terms to the Christians after the meeting, out of a newfound respect for that religion. Of course they rejected all of his peace treaty attempts so he had to open the Nile and flood the invaders and then treated his captives with enormous generosity and still gave them good terms. And then al-Kamil also had some great negotiating prowess with Fredrick II. So there is definitely a legacy of a bloodbath, but it was nice reading about some of the more peaceful interactions between the opposing forces where respect reigned over greed and blind hatred.
Just be fucking glad the Yank Right haven’t got their paws on the Reconquista. They probably won’t want to do that because, hello, Spanish and we all know what the self-loathing Right Wing think of Spanish-speaking folk but, mate – a period of war on the Iberian Peninsula that lasted for 780 years?
I mean if they did they’d stumble into the fact that Al-Andalus was, for the time, pretty progressive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange_in_Al-Andalus#Social_mobility_and_conversion). Hell, their brains would melt if they found out that El Cid, Spain’s national hero, worked for both Christian and Muslim rulers throughout his life
Ssssssh! Don’t spoil the fun!!!
Nah, I don’t see anything you got wrong there. Currently reading Runciman’s three-volume History of the Crusades. Incredibly informative and fascinating.The one thing I find interesting in current discourse on the Crusades is the prevailing attitude “Christians bad, Muslims good” where the actual history (as always) is much more complicated. I suppose I may not be in those dark corners of ignorance, but even as a Christian, I don’t hear people praising the Crusades. Maybe that was more prevalent in the past, but definitely not something I hear in my circles.Through reading about the history of the Crusades, I’m just reminded how barbarous a time it was. Not saying modern civilization is entirely perfect, but things were brutal back then.Sorry for the length of this, but thought I’d include an excerpt from my review of Volume 1 of Runciman’s history: “The First Crusade began for many reasons…one could discuss the feudal dynamics and land hunger of the western powers…or one could discuss the pressures upon the Byzantine Empire under the rule of Alexius I and how he used every means at his disposal to keep his empire afloat in the middle of a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape…or one could even talk about the dynamics in the Muslim world and the relatively static nature of some of these kingdoms compared to the influx and influence of the new power on the scene, the Turks…or one could talk about the relationship between the Western Christian Church and the Eastern…and how while there was not yet schism, the relationship between the two was not always a healthy one…and clouds were on the horizon. And yes, religion was something that was very present in the narrative thread of the day. Now we may talk about religion as being something that is a private matter between one’s self and one’s god. But then? Religion was something that was seen as necessarily intertwined with the rule of the state. So this tale of the Crusades? It is indeed messy. There were atrocities. There were horrors. There was selfishness and heroics and cowardice and betrayals and greed and brutality. Just like with almost all history, this tale is not black and white. And I think that’s why I enjoyed reading this book so much.”
Well, since you asked, I’ll disagree with you on your assertion that most of the Crusades not taking place in the Middle East. Except for the Fourth, which ended at Constantinople. and arguably the Eighth, which targeted Tunis, all the Crusades ended up in Syria, Palestine, or Egypt, which are all pretty solidly Middle East as far as I’m aware.
There were northern crusades as well, against the pagan Baltic and Slavic peoples.
Do they give Alexander Siddig any more screen time? He’s one of my favorite performers ever.
If I remember correctly his role is one of the really expanded ones.
“Perhaps I should have had a different teacher.”
You’re right to recognize Eva Green’s performance in this as being fantastic, but the side-effect is that she makes Orlando Bloom look even worse. The scenes they have together are some of the most horribly one-sided I’ve ever seen. She might as well be acting against a wooden post. It almost brings more attention to the movie’s faults.The only other movie I recall thinking the same thing in was Terminator 3, with Claire Danes acting her but off against the vacuum of charisma that was John Conner. Fortunately that movie wasn’t going to be a classic no matter who was in it – it feels more tragic here.I’ve watched this a few times and I think it’s quite good, but Orlando Bloom is just such a gaping chasm in the middle of it that I couldn’t possibly rank it above his other candidates for best films, like Alien or Blade Runner. Even Thelma and Louise or Gladiator at least are somewhat consistent in acting quality across the board.
the nice part about the director’s cut is that it reduces the focus on bloom, as i recall.that scene with her soon. woosh.
Agreed, I don’t think he necessarily hurts the film but a better lead actor would have really made the whole thing stick together a little better
Have you considered the role he’s playing? He was a blacksmith, the bastard son of a knight who became a lord in the Holy Land. He becomes one himself but knows that his past makes him suspect. He’s kind of supposed to be wary and “wooden” around this noble-born princess/queen of Jerusalem. Maybe I’m wrong. Yeah, Bloom just doesn’t seem to carry “weight” as an actor. Who would you have cast, remembering that this was 2005?
It is said that Scott wanted Bettany but was overruled by Fox.
Bettany would have ruled! He’s obviously killing it now as Vision, but I liked him in “A Knight’s Tale” and “Wimbledon” and those movies would have been a lot more boring without him.
He was and is the best part of “A Knight’s Tale” … and that’s saying something, because despite it being a middling script, it’s well acted pretty much across the board.
Yeah that cast was stacked! Had a bunch of famous people before they were in career defining roles.
Not gonna lie, them dancing to “Golden Years” was my personal choice for best part, but Bettany/Chaucer emulating a modern day hype man was great too
Really? That would have made the film so much better. Damn.
Bettany would have murdered that role. I always think that Bloom’s casting was stunt-casting. “Look, girls, we’ve got Legolas! Come see our film!”
The timing certainly checks out for that; ROTK was 2003, so all those guys were still riding that wave…
Considering Bloom was likely brought in because of his star appeal? I would’ve preferred Heath Ledger, I think. He may have been a little old for the role but would’ve been better. I agree that Bloom isn’t awful in this role simply because he’s not supposed to be a typical lead in this film for the majority of it. He’s more of a lead the viewer takes the journey with.
Tim Allen. No better blacksmith than a Tool Man. (Also a tool, man.) (Also I hate myself for this comment.)
I actually gave up on the film because of him. I guess I’ll try the director’s cut. I have a trustworthy friend who has also recommended it to me.
Remember the talk about Orlando Bloom getting a chest merkin? I do, and I’m still waiting for it…
To be fair to Bloom, he’s not given that much to work with. The character’s defining trait is that he doesn’t buy into the nobility of people and that he doesn’t want to be part of things. Like, he kinda comes around on that later, but mostly he just wants to be left alone to brood, and maybe make his lands (that he doesn’t really think he should have) nicer. He’s kind of narratively inert, which is why the other characters, men and women of a time when legacy and power, and the display of that power translating to legitimacy handed forth from GOD, all find him so damn interesting. Of course we as an audience are a bit closer to the ideology Balion espouses, but also want to be entertained, so we find his “Whatever man, this is all just a social construct, none of it really means anything.” deal uninteresting. Most of us have that as our concept of the crusades going in. I do find as the narrative goes on, and he continually meets the Hospitaller (that knight he keeps meeting, who may or may not be an angel) and his relationship with Sibylla develops, and he understands that you can still fight for something even if you don’t believe in anything but the common good, he becomes more interesting. But watching a cynic come to grips with humanity is enjoyable to me. He’s still pretty stoic through the whole thing though. Paul Bettany would have been fucking amazing.
Bloom was outclassed by EVERYBODY in this movie (Irons, Thewlis, Gleeson, Massoud, the list goes on), but I’m not sure what a beter actor would have brought to the role. I enjoyed the movie’s portrayal of different ruling styles, ideologies, etc. enough that Balian didn’t seem like a necessary part of the story, just the lens through which we view it.
I only saw the director’s cut, and Bloom is still a boring lead.
Eva Green elevates everything she’s in. Even garbage like that 300 sequel or that stupid Miss Peregrine movie are entertaining when she’s on screen. She is one of my favorite actors in film.
She single-handedly justified the existence of the 300 sequel. I had seen The Dreamers in the theater, so I knew from the jump she was spectacular, but she chews the living hell out of 300: The Squeakuel.
seven different versions of Blade Runner will pretty much secure one’s reputation as a tinkerer
And they’re all equally boring.
You can thank Eva Green for that.
Eva Green is never a bad casting choice.
Eva Green is the most beautiful human person currently walking this earth. I could stare at that face for hours. The only thing I remember from that movie is her.
I like everything about this movie except Orlando Bloom. Fortunately he’s a mere non-presence rather than an active hindrance, so he really detracts nothing from it.
Perfect timing. This was on Starz last night and I honestly forgot just how good Green is in the role. Yes she’s beautiful but that’s not as notable as her performance. Its really underrated.
I had this idea that after Thanos died, he meets Death and it turns out that Death had been manipulating everyone, both him and the Avengers (I mean doesn’t anyone think it was a bit *too* pat how the 1 in 14,000,605 timeline came to pass?).That could introduce Thanos’s infatuation with Death and would align with the existing comics. Could in theory lead to an adaptation of the excellent 18 part comic series Thanos/Thanos Wins which as much as I enjoyed Endgame, it gets knocked into a cocked hat.TL;DR Eva Green should play the MCU Death if she’s interested is what I’m saying. Who’s with me?PS: Bring back Ultron. We were promised an Age! A week is not what I think of when I hear of the word Age! Ultron having been granted life, the other side is death and Death is an expert in dealing with what comes after life, it’s in the name!
She’d make a good DC/Vertigo Death in Sandman. Though that might actually be a bit too tame for her, cause Death is actually really chill and laid back. Desire might be more up her alley, Eva Green would totally own that role.
I think Eva Green’s standards prevent her from doing superhero movies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
“Also, to be superficial for a second? Green is absurdly gorgeous in this movie”I don’t think it’s superficial. Her beauty is part of what makes all those roles work. Who else would believably scramble the brains of 007 himself just by walking by?Also, gawking at Eva Green while she’s teeth-gnashing and having violent hero/villainness room-rattling sex was the only interesting thing about the 300 sequel. That movie is all her and nothing more.
She also has some great teeth-gnashing, violent, hero/villain room-rattling sex in “Penny Dreadful” which has a very talented cast but she is like the raw beating heart of it and everyone else is just riding her pulse. Yeah that metaphor totally worked, nailed it.
I’ve always loved this film, even the theatrical cut with the needless studio meddling. To see it the way Ridley Scott truly wanted it to be seen is to see a complex account of the war over Jerusalem and its status as holy center for all three revealed religions. Not to mention that Scott is a true artist whose sense of the visual can be appreciated at every level.While I actually think Orlando Bloom was good in the role (and probably gave Scott what he wanted) and yes, the Director’s Cut shows how very good Eva Green really is, the rest of the cast took my breath away the very first time I saw it: Jeremy Irons as the wise, weary Tiberius, David Thewlis as the mysterious, actively good Hospitaler (a nice antidote to Martin Czokas and Brendan Gleeson’s vicious Knights Templar), Liam Neeson in a brief, important role as Balian’s noble father who regrets all his sins “but one,” Alexander Siddig as a Muslim dignitary who possesses discernment, compassion and a sense of humor, Edward Norton’s unbilled, powerful cameo as ‘the leper king’ (breaking my heart when he begs Sybilla to remember him as he once was) and, perhaps my favorite – Ghassan Massoud, well-known in his native Syria, as Salah al-din, known better in the West as Saladin. This film is the only one produced in the West, as far as I know, to present the Muslim sultan and conqueror as a human being with a point of view and, above all moral standards comparable to any Western hero. When reminded that during the First Crusade the Christian conquerors created a river of blood shed by the Muslims, we believe Saladin when he says, “I am not those men,” and his promise of safe conduct for the Christian residents – including women and children – of Jerusalem. A few favorite quotes:“Tiberius thinks I am unpredictable. I am unpredictable.” (Sybilla)“When you stand before God, you cannot say, “But I was told by others to do thus,” or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.” (King Baldwin IV)“All death is certain. I shall tell your father what I’ve seen you become.” (The Hospitaler)“Your quality will be known among your enemies, before ever you meet them…and if God does not love you, how could you have done the things you have done?” (Nasir)“There will be a day when you will wish you had done a little evil to do a greater good.” (Sybilla)“I’m not here with you because I’m, I’m bored or wicked. I’m here because… because in the East between one person and another there is only light.” (again, Sybilla)And my favorite, I think, from Balian and Saladin:
“What is Jerusalem?”
“Nothing.” (he starts to walk away, then turns, spreads out his arms) “Everything!”
Tim Burton should really be the poster child of “phenomenal actress pigeonholed into mediocre/ hideous movie.” Eva Green, HBC and Winona- he’s managed to sideline all three until they escaped his universe and reminded people how skilled they really ARE.
My main takeaway from the theatrical release of this movie was that I really wanted this movie to be about Ghassan Massoud’s Saladin. “ I am not those men. I am Salahudin”
Agreed. Wonderful presence portraying a courtly soldier.
“Salahudin!”Massoud is breathtakingly electrifying in this role. Plenty of characters – I’m going to say, yes, especially Green – were merely serviceable. Massoud towers above them all – not just a king, but almost as a force of nature. Whoever cast him was a genius, and he’s a force of nature in the film, if not a force of God. He also gets one of the best, most well-earned smiles in cinema history, and possible the best line in the film: “Nothing…Everything!”Interestingly, he turned down a role in Syriana, which also released in 2005, thinking it would be anti-Arab (and, frankly, you can’t blame him). He later said he regretted his decision. Man, imagine if Fox hadn’t screw the theatrical cut, I would feel that Massoud would’ve been a shoe-in for a Best Supporting Actor nom, which instead went to Clooney…in Syriana. Massoud’s Salahudin and Thewlis’ Knight (Angel?) Hospitaller are the two icons of the movie – two actors who outshine the more highly-paid names next to them.
This is tangential, but the director’s cut of Legend is also better than the theatrical release. The extra scenes just give it a lot more texture. But it lacks the beautiful Tangerine Dream score. So there is no definitive version of that film.
Huge fan of this director’s cut. The extended intro in medieval France is great, as is all the extra material with Liam Neeson. It’s an excellent film and one which was a true revelation compared to the theatrical cut.
Sorry, but when I see the crusaders coming up the road, I’m confused why they’re on horses and not being followed by squires clacking coconut shells together.
I’m assuming that Ridley will appear again in this Director’s Cut series but I’m going to say it here – I prefer the original Bladerunner to any of the other cuts. I think narration often makes movies better and I felt the conclusion was great.
The Director’s Cut is a mile wide and an inch deep. You still have thinly-drawn characters, a story that takes far too long to get to Jerusalem so that the politics are only superficially explored and a boring lead. In either cut, the awesome people all invariably die (Sheen, Norton, Neeson, Gleeson, McKidd, Coster-Waldau) or piss off (Thewlis, Irons, Green) before the third act. That only leaves Bloom to carry the rest of the film up against a mincing Csokas and Finch looking askance at everything. A Bale or DiCaprio would have been a considerable step up from Bloom, but it would still feel like we are following the wrong character. The first season of “Rome” felt like the serious, intelligent and entertaining exploration of history that this “El Cid” rip-off wanted so desperately to be.
Oh, I remember this! Good movie. And yes, “absurdly gorgeous” is a fairly accurate description of Eva Green in general. 😌
I think it is clear that the issues in many movies and shows can be solved by the simple addition of “More Eva Green Please” cause even mediocre films like that 300 sequel can be buoyed by her willingness to go, in proper cinematic terminology, balls to the wall.
I saw regular “Kingdom of Heaven” when I was 14 and I liked it just fine, caught it again on streaming and as the article mentioned it is apparent that a lot of work was put into establishing the intricacies between Christians and Muslims, as well as divisions within their ranks like French vs. British etc. I think that holds up pretty well, but now I want to see this directors cut because it seems like it improves a lot of the rest of the film but also these Eva Green masterclass acting workshops are a treat.
I was today years old when I learned that Baldwin was played by Edward Norton. That’s amazing. Gosh, I need to watch this again. I enjoyed the theatrical cut (mostly because I’m a huge nerd, and ooh, swords and cavalry charges), but I bought and loved the Director’s Cut years later. Time for a rewatch.
Another good movie with Eva Green is a movie called The Salvation, starring Mads Mikkelsen. It’s a western where Mikkelsen, a Danish immigrant goes on a revenge spree against town boss Jeffrey Dean Morgan after his family are murdered. Eva Green’s character is mute, so she has no lines, but she glares at people very intimidatingly.
Eva Green has such a sexily intimidating glare that that sounds amazing. Mads Mikkelsen is always a delight too. I’m sold.
I’ve always heard this about the Director’s Cut but never seen it. I turned off the theatrical one once halfway through because it was a chore.
I accidentally stumbled on to the Kingdom of Heaven director’s cut one night when I noticed it was a lot longer than the version I had seen previously. I really liked the theatrical version but it left a lot of questions unanswered. Then later I saw a clip of Ridley Scott saying how much much of the movie had been cut by his bosses and lamenting all the holes it had left in the story.
Love this movie but how do you kill Odo, my favorite character in the whole film, in the first ten minutes?
Good, tiny scene at the end: after [spoilers] his forces have taken over the city, and you can see that some looting and damage have gone on, Saladin walks into a room and sees an ornate cross lying on the ground. He picks it up with care and places it back on the table where it came from. Nice, wordless touch about the value of respect.
I watched this movie in theaters in Jordan, and the (largely Muslim) audience burst into spontaneous applause at that scene. It really shows how starved Muslim audiences are for any semblance of positive representation in media — not to mention how revered and respected Salah al-Din remains to this day, in part for the reasons you mentioned.
You can have your Jessica Alba’s and your Megan Fox’s … Eva Green is the sexy.
I saw this for the first time the other day. After I’d seen it, I read that in the theatrical version it isn’t made clear that Orlando Bloom and Michael Sheen play half-brothers. The fuck? What sort of hatchet job was it?Also, while I appreciate the narrative decision of killing of the crew assembled at the beginning, it would have been great to see Neeson, McKidd and co rampaging across Europe.