EFAP Movies #61: Kingdom of Heaven - The War Arc Enters The Crusades!

Sargon of Akkad complaining about Orlando Bloom's acting is the only thing that brings me joy in life.

Training from Liam Neeson results in: Knighthood (a few minutes) Batman (a montage) Jedi Knighthood (a lifetime, offscreen)

Orlando Bloom being the lone survivor of a shipwreck is because he's such a wooden actor. Heh.

“I mean, what’s the problem with his acting?” “The acting”

Color me super excited. I took multiple Medieval Europe courses for my master's, specialized in Classical World like Ancient Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia, took courses on the Middle East and Islamic empires, and in my senior year Crusades course we watched this movie at the end of Finals and critiqued it for its historic absurdity. In other words: I've been looking forward to this.

I'm so excited. Mauler did hint that they slowly start to realize Orlando Bloom is not a good actor throughout the War Arch.

This week, I finally showed my best friend the extended Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and he loved it so much we watched the last six hours in one sitting. Then the next day he told me how great season 2 of Halo is 💀

Drinker - “How actually do you wash ashore, unconscious and not die?!” Aragorn starts sweating

This same crew but EFAP Monty Python Holy Grail 😂

King Baldwin is the best part of this movie

I always crack up at Orlando Bloom's armor leveling up throughout this movie lol the cool blue armor at the end is the quintessential end game armor you get just before the final area.

"I once fought for three days with an arrow through my testicle" 😆😁😁

Ridley Scott wanted Paul Bettany. The studio demanded Orlando. Sigh, what could have been . . .

Drinker needed to see Tatiana, he couldn’t handle the movie anymore lol

Lol, Shad going "from memory,... this battle,..." I knew he was old, i didn't know he was THAT old...😂

The part that drives me crazy isn't the historical side or the acting... first Balian is a Gary Stu, immediately a competent warrior, immediately a competent landkeeper and nobleman, the film alleges he's politically savvy but he isn't, and the worst thing is his fling with Sibylla. He's totally comfortable committing adultery with her while prattling about 'a kingdom of conscience' but won't marry the same woman to hold back a war, and this is portrayed as noble. It's just modernity stuffed into the crusades.

Baldwin might as well be the main character in this movie. An ailing king near the end of his short life, watching his kingdom tear itself apart as they all stand at the brink of disaster. We could've focused on his youth as the great hope of a prosperous Jerusalem, fending off Saladin's army and controlling the palace intrigue of his kingdom. But over time, he starts to feel the curse put upon him, as he begin to question his abilities, his life's works, even his faith. And we could've ended with that big-ass entrance with the crusaders all in tow. King Baldwin in his dying breath, deciding to show the world the strength of Jerusalem one last time, stopping a bloody confrontation between his fearful enemy and his own subject. That's just a more interesting movie than some random French emo guy who suddenly became a knight.

We really need a good historical Crusade movie or tv show about Richard the Lionheart vs Saladin.

The thing with Orlando, and i suspect Zendaya, is modelling background - emoting is bad and trained not to express too much on the face, as it causes wrinkles and most photoshoots are done with very specific faces and angles, they are used to show those angles and specific neutral faces and seem deadly afraid of breaking it as it might affect their modelling creed/career if they make an expression that can be seen as ugly.

At least we know now where Jet Li got his inspiration for his vast variety of facial expressions in Mulan Live Action...