Movies To See: Kingdom Of Heaven

I really love a good trailer. Every once in a while, you will see a movie trailer that just knocks you out--that causes you to sit up and pay attention. Trailers are tricky things and can be very hard to make. But when you make a great trailer, it can be a real joy for an audience. I love seeing a two minute preview that leaves me dying to see more. I remember when the Moulin Rouge trailer hit, I was blown away. I saw that trailer and thought that the movie would be the next Titanic, that it would just rake in money. I mean, it looked like a great movie and it also looked like it would pull in huge repeat business from the love story, which is what made Titanic all its money. That certainly wasn't the case, but I'll happily admit to loving the hell out of that movie. The movie lived up to its trailer.

The point, though, is that making a great trailer is hard. I see crappy trailers all the time. It's tough to find the right images to make the movie seem compelling and tougher still to do it while giving the audience a clear sense of what the story is. Then you have to worry, as well, about giving away too much or not showing enough and it just strikes me as quite the balancing act. I'm happy to say, then, that Kingdom of Heaven has one of those truly great trailers.

Kingdom of Heaven is the newest movie from Ridley Scott, who directed Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Alien, among others. With Gladiator, Scott proved he could make one hell of an epic film. It looks like he's doing it again with Kingdom of Heaven. The movie is set in the 12th century, during the Crusades. It's focused on Balian of Ibelin, who is played by Orlando Bloom. Other than that basic information, I don't know much about the film. However, you can get a very clear sense of what Ridley Scott is going for here by watching the movie's trailer. Obviously, this is a huge epic film that looks to double as a character study, feeling very reminiscent of Gladiator.

In fact, my biggest complaint about the trailer is that it, at times, seems a little too intent on aping the look and feel of Gladiator. There are a couple shots in the trailer that are quite similar to shots from Gladiator and its glaringly obvious they are trying to evoke memories of that huge movie. However, I can't blame them for wanting to play up the similarities to a film that did about $190 million at the box office here in the U.S. and $450 million worldwide.

Based on the trailer, it appears that the movie will be visually stunning. There's some amazing cinematography going on. Furthermore, the action scenes appear to be staged on a huge scale. Aside from just the action and the visuals, it would seem that there also will be some strong character work in this. The trailer makes it look as if they took a new story and then followed the blueprint from Gladiator to create another epic story grounded by solid, compelling characters. Everything about it looks good to me and I'm more than ready to see the movie, which is opening on May 6. The trailer is definitely worth a look. If you like these kinds of movies at all, I suspect it will leave you wanting more.