Kingdom of Heaven: Directors Cut
A newly appointed knight and an experienced one watch as two knights are being hanged; both for killing innocent Muslims in their place of worship. The new knight says, “So they are dying for what the Pope told them to do.” The old knight replied, “Yes, but not Christ, I think....”
Artistry and Craft
At the beginning of watching Kingdom of Heaven, I had a particular picture of what I could expect for the epistemology of the movie from certain Instagram Reels; I had no idea what to expect for the epic of a movie I was about to witness.
It can be tempting to DNF Kingdom of Heaven if you are someone who tends to need to know where a story is going. Even so, the beginning is brilliant, even if a bit confusing, until the story explains to the viewer that we are witnessing a story's end, and on the precipice of another's beginning.
It also didn't help that it was hard to hear the actors sometimes, as they tended to mumble their lines at a lower volume in English accents. If you use closed captioning and can sit through the build-up for the movie, it is completely worth it if you like epic stories.
The cinematography was beautiful, comparable to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for the way the filmmakers captured different landscapes. The movie used colour and light as well in order to portray emotions and states of integrity. For instance, in the beginning of the movie, many of the characters are at best morally gray; their faces are often captured in shadows. But later in the movie, once one of the characters commits himself to integrity, the character is often shot in full-on light, without any darkness obscuring their face. There is also colour contrast between Jerusalem and France that I found delightful, giving the movie a variety of "textures".
I found the initial fighting scenes to be choppy and disjointed, but I feel the later scenes of action, specifically of battles later in the movie, captured the panic, chaos, and intimidation war brings, even in the skirmishes. The scenes of battles were astounding, capturing the grandiosity and atrocity of war, again making the shooting of this movie comparable to The Lord of the Rings. ★★★.75
Themes and Messages
One of the best and most well-known messages in the movie that makes Kingdom of Heaven what it is, is the message of "Thou mayest," which is very East of Eden-coded. Instead of God calling us to simply submit to either His rule or any other's rule over us, He says "decide." This freedom of moral agency makes it so we are accountable. At the end of the day, doing what is right is up to us, changing is up to us, and changing is a part of repentance. Even so, the movie doesn't go into a fundamental part of repentance: grace. A lot of times the church focuses on grace (as it should), and repentance as an afterthought. I find that sometimes it is assumed that churchgoers know explicitly what that looks like. The movie gives the viewer an example of repentance in action.
I found that in the movie, the concept of how we relate to others being how we relate to God is discussed in an implicit way. For instance, do we value what God values, or are we content to manipulate or forgo the things and values that God said are recognizable in His children just to obtain what we desire? Do we remain as Christians who accept grace, but are unwilling to "turn and repent"? Are we, as Christians, unwilling or willing to examine our lives?
★★★★
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think this movie was great, sweeping, and epic. I would recommend this movie to those who like movies that leave lasting impressions and challenge the viewer on their beliefs. I would caution, though, about the large amounts of violence and the prominent gore in battle and war scenes;
4 out of 5 stars.
Content Discretion:
Violence, corruption, suicide, war and depictions of war, gore, fanaticism, adultery, sickness, death.
That's all folks! If you enjoyed the review, feel free to share it and/or leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your perspective! Did you watch the Director's cut or the theatre version?? ❤❤❤
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