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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, October 14, 2005

Scott's 'Kingdom' fails to attain 'Gladiator' status

By David Germain
Associated Press

Will Ferrell stars as a soccer coach in "Kicking & Screaming."

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Selected home-video releases:

  • "Kingdom of Heaven" (20th Century Fox)

    Ridley Scott brought the wonders of Rome back to life and box-office prominence with "Gladiator," but his take on the Crusades proved a critical and commercial dud.

    The historical saga stars Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons in the tale of a blacksmith grieving over his wife's death; he inherits his father's noble mantle and leads the defense of Jerusalem during the Christian-vs.-Muslim battles of the Middle Ages.

    The two-disc set has A&E Network and History Channel documentaries about the film contrasting its fictional aspects with the historical record, plus interviews with Bloom and Scott. The film is accompanied by text commentary with historical background on the Crusades.

  • "Unleashed" (Universal)

    Jet Li delivers on two fronts with the best dramatic performance of his career and some bone-crunchingly inventive fight sequences. Li plays a man raised virtually as a human attack dog by a vicious mobster (Bob Hoskins), with Morgan Freeman co-starring as a blind piano tuner who offers the hero the sort of decent domestic life he has never known.

    The movie is available in the R-rated theatrical version or an unrated edition with extended action footage. Both versions feature a making-of featurette, an interview with director Louis Leterrier and music videos by Massive Attack and RZA. The unrated edition also comes with a segment on the fight choreography by martial-arts master Yuen Wo Ping.

  • "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (Warner Bros.)

    Clothes make the young woman in this tale of four gal pals spending a summer apart for the first time. When the quartet of varying shapes and sizes (Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrara and Blake Lively) come across a pair of thrift-store blue jeans that magically fits each of them perfectly, they decide to share the pants, each wearing them for a week as a good-luck charm and to maintain their bonds.

    The actresses (with Lively joining in by phone) gather for a bull session to watch scenes from the film and offer recollections, while director Ken Kwapis adds commentary for deleted scenes. The DVD also has an interview with Ann Brashares, whose best-selling novel was the basis for the movie.

  • "McClintock!" and "Hondo" (Paramount)

    John Wayne stars in two Westerns, light and dark. The slapstick-laden "McClintock!" (from 1963) reunites Wayne with his "The Quiet Man" co-star Maureen O'Hara for a brawling tale of a cattle rancher reconciling with his estranged wife during the homecoming of their daughter.

    "Hondo" (from 1953) is a more sobering story of a cavalryman protecting a woman and her son from encroaching Indian tribes. Both DVDs feature commentary with critic Leonard Maltin and Western expert Frank Thompson, who are joined by actors from the films, including O'Hara and "McClintock!" co-star Stefanie Powers.

  • "Kicking & Screaming" (Universal)

    Will Ferrell morphs from laid-back vitamin salesman and family guy to caffeine-crazed soccer dad in this "Bad News Bears"-style comedy retread. Ferrell's average-Joe lunkhead finds himself swept up in the glory of the games and becomes a hyper-competitive coach of his son's team as he heads for a championship showdown with a squad coached by his own win-at-all-costs father (Robert Duvall).

    Featuring Mike Ditka, the movie is accompanied on DVD by deleted scenes, outtakes and alternate footage. The disc's other extras focus mainly on a forgettable batch of featurettes about the young actors on Ferrell's ragtag team and the soccer training they underwent.