I finished watching the director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven on Blu-ray last night. My opinion basically echoes most reviews on the net – Orlando Bloom just isn’t up to the task but he’s not screamingly awful, and Ridley Scott surrounded him with extremely talented actors who made his shortcomings more obvious. I mean… David Thewlis, Edward Norton, Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons. That’s a damn high bar to reach.

Visually and aurally, the disc is terrific – an early battle scene was incredibly visceral, with arrows flying through the frame (and the soundfield) with extraordinary power. The story is dense enough that I think I’m going to need to rewatch it to catch everything, and the costuming and set design was extremely similar to Assassin’s Creed, so I guess AC must be historically accurate.

I did a bit of Wikipedia-digging to find out more about the Crusades and leprosy, so I guess the film inspired me to learn something, which can’t be a bad thing.