A desperately dull historical epic that bombed hard before being re-cut into a classic sharpens its streaming sword

We’re not saying studio interference always has an adverse effect every production, but the turnaround in fortunes that greeted Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven when the filmmaker was allowed to unleash his preferred vision for the big budget epic upon the world is nothing if not fascinating.

The Gladiator comparisons were inevitable given that the four-time Academy Award-nominated director was tackling another blockbuster effort set in the distant past, but his second bite at the historical cherry proved to be a damp squib first time around. At a cost of $130 million, Kingdom of Heaven could only crawl towards a turgid box office take of $218 million.

Reviews could generously be described as tepid, too, with a 39 percent Rotten Tomatoes score hardly idea for what was originally pegged as an awards season contender. Both undercooked and overstuffed at the same time, Scott’s decision to return to the well proved to be a masterstroke.

Adding an additional 50 minutes of footage, the 194-minute Director’s Cut transformed Kingdom of Heaven from one of the most disappointing epics of the decade into one of the greatest, with the narrative being given additional time to breathe immeasurably improving every aspect of the movie from start to finish.

There’s no question that it’s the definitive edition, but that only makes it all the more frustrating to discover that it’s the underwhelming theatrical edition that’s making waves on-demand. Per FlixPatrol, Kingdom of Heaven V1.0 has charted on the Prime Video and Rakuten rankings this week, so we can only hope audiences discover that there’s a vastly superior cut of the exact same thing within arm’s reach.