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Title: It's extraordinary how fully King was able to ruin this story
Review: Lars Von Trier's "The Kingdom" is a wildly entertaining piece of made-for-tv cinema of which no one should deprive him/herself. The characters are rich, quirky, and interesting and the tone a unique blend of funny and supernaturally disturbing. King's version is astoundingly poor, making all manner of classic mistakes of vastly overexplaining the blackstory,ludicruously undermining its suspense, drawing its characters far too broadly, failing to achieve the minimal level of craft in the balance and shaping of the story, and a number of other mistakes and bad habits that are trademarks of lesser King efforts. If you watch this, I think you owe it to yourself to watch Von Trier's original version afterward. The latter is so indecently, immodestly superior it amounts to a well-deserved kick in the shins to the producers of this tediously and embarassingly lesser work.
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