Kingdom of Heaven and Hitchhikers

I went to see two movies over the weekend Kingdom of Heaven and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Kingdom was a movie I'd been looking forward to for ages, and while it was good I came out of it just a little dissapointed. Two reasons, firstly somehow the movie felt a little jerky and the characters were not as well developed as I would have liked. Surprise, surprise there is a directors cut of the movie that has another hour or so of footage, most of it character based. Now while I like the idea of a DVD that offers more than 2 deleted and unfinished scenes and a trailer for my 25 euros, I do worry that cinema releases are basically going to turn into 2 hour trailers for the upcoming 3 or 4 hour DVD. I paid to go to the cinema to see the movie, I should see the best version possible, not what ever was hacked together by a studio and director who decided the DVD release would be better.

Secondly why do studios insist on saving money by reusing music from other movies? When hundreds of millions are spent on a movie, why not do the music properly? Troy is a prime example of this where music from several other movies was used in scenes where it didnt suit, for example the beach landing scene using music from Enemy at the Gates, a movie about snipers in Stallingrad. In Kingdom at one of the pivitol scenes when Balian is giving an important speech (no spoiler there I hope) they use the music from The 13th Warrior. It suited the scene but just felt like penny pinching.

Still apart from those to small issues I enjoyed Kingdom and would recommend it, at least until the new Star Wars movie comes out.

As for Hitchhikers, well it was amusing. I've never been a fan or even read the book so I didnt know what to expect. The reaction of the people who were fans seems very positive, so I guess its a job well done.