But most importantly, he puts him in the center of a bloody game of thrones in the Jerusalem court where a Leper King named Baldwin (Edward Norton) attempts to keep a peace in his final days before his disease claims his life. He raises the boy up to the rank of knight and soon-to-be heir of his dusty lands. It is in this context that a Crusader knight and Lord of Ibelin (Liam Neeson) returns to France to reclaim his bastard son, Balian (Orlando Bloom). This also, in essence, robbed a very spiritual movie of its soul. While that is still on the lengthy side for a modern action movie, the emphasis was just that: the gore and glory that comes with medieval battle sequences. Indeed, 20th Century Fox made the calculated choice in 2005 to have their thrice Oscar nominated director cut his sprawling meditation on Crusades, codes of honor, and how their auras still linger today down to a paltry 144 minutes. Trust us, if you’ve only seen the theatrical cut of Kingdom of Heaven, you basically haven’t seen it at all. Yet one that almost never gets its due is the criminally overlooked Kingdom of Heaven, a masterclass of grandiose epic storytelling that is every bit as layered and emotionally complex as all of the above pictures. When one thinks back to Ridley Scott’s many great films, it can be tricky to simply cull them down to a top-tier: Alien Blade Runner The Duellists Thelma & Louise Gladiator The Martian.
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