A DVD of Ridley Scott’s 190-minute director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven (which I reviewed on January 4th after seeing it the sub-run Laemmle Fairfax in West Hollywood) is coming out on Fox Home Video on May 23. I called it a “considerably better film” than the mainstream theatrical version that opened in May of last year, and said that “stand-up critics ought to review this version for history’s sake, for the sake of saluting top-grade filmmaking. This is an obviously improved version of what was a respected film to begin with, and from a major director… attention should be paid. When a film this admirable is deliberately gutted by a major studio, critics have an obligation to assess what was what.
Every good movie has a prime fighting weight. 190 minutes is what Kingdom of Heaven should have been all along, and seeing it at this length proves it.”