| Review:
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Another day, another “war in the Middle East” movie.
Peter Berg's The Kingdom is one of the latest entries in
this ever-growing subgenre of war films. With characters
who are clichés, sloppy camera work, often sluggish pacing,
and a predictable plot line, there's nothing to set this
piece of realistic fiction above any other Middle East war
movie of recent years. ***
We've seen these characters a thousand times before
in countless war movies - the persistent commander, the
joke cracker, the slightly older guy, and of course, the
obligatory female member of the team. Could Berg have at
least TRIED to make some original characters? ***
The movie lasts nearly two hours, and that's far longer
than it needed to be. There are lengthy chunks that could
have been cut from the film, resulting in a shorter, more
“to the point” cut of the movie. Instead we get two hours
of predictable plotline that drags on and on, and end the
end it just doesn't feel like it was worth enduring. ***
The camera work in The Kingdom, particularly in the
final shootout in the Saudi apartment complex, is shaky
and nauseating. The camera jumps around and shakes endlessly
throughout action scenes, and it makes you wonder why with
all the funding that went into this movie, the crew didn't
invest in a tripod. It's not often a movie makes this critic
feel dizzy, but the Kingdom certainly did. ---
Image And Sound:
I have no issue with the sound quality on this DVD.
Explosions and dialogue alike are loud and clear. Sadly,
the picture quality has a lot of grain in it, and falls
below my standard for a DVD of a recent film. Not terrible
picture quality by any means, but not up to snuff for modern-day
DVD.
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| Special
Features: |
Universal gives us a plethora of special features on
the DVD. Deleted scenes are included, and while it's not
hard to see why they were ultimately left on the cutting
room floor, they're still interesting to watch. The behind-the-scenes
featurettes will definitely appeal to anyone who enjoyed
the film, as will Peter Berg's feature-length commentary.
I found the most interesting extra to be the interactive
timeline, which has a listing of years and their importance
to US/Saudi relations. You can click on the listed years
of the timeline, and get a slightly more detailed summary.
A nifty little extra that sheds some light on the events
that both led up to and inspired the story. Universal has
done a terrific job with the features here.
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