Jesus Christ, this is one of the most Mary-Sue characters I've

The storyline is complete nonsense. You just ignore it and enjoy the cool armor and the fighting scenes. When you do that the film is pretty decent.

>>79517947
Unfortunately, that's true. But overall, the movie's not great because of its idiotic storyline and really hamfisted motifs [christians are murderous bastards, muslims are wise and noble] with zero nuance.

>>79518263
>>79517947
Oh, and Orlando Bloom is an awful actor, holy hell!

He was already an expert in military tactics and siege engines.

I would seem like an agricultural genius if i went to the middle east today. "Plants need water, stop smoking ditch weed and dig a well you lazy shit"

>>79518342
his acting is fine, what he lacks is leading man charisma

>>79518482
Half of the time he looked like he was constipated. I understood that he performed with a fever for a lot of the scenes, but that still doesn't change the way it looked. To his credit, the character itself was awfully written, so I'm not even gonna argue about that.

>>79517887
Directors cut is actually really good. Bloom's performance is the weakest part of the film, which is a shame, because if it was better it would have been incredible.

Scenes with Edward Norton as the king were very memorable

>>79519136
If Bloom's performance was better the movie* would have been incredible.

>>79519136
>>79519148
Only if Bloom acted better AND the storyline was rewritten. Half of the movie feels like a video game tutorial, with the main character asking dumb questions [*looks at muslims praying* "who are those guys?"] as an excuse to tell the audience stuff. Not to mention about how dumb is to see this guy arriving in Jerusalem and have everyone throw himself at him with friendship and promises of eternal love like he's been there since forever. And the worst part is that instead of being SHOWN the main character's struggles and transformation, we're being explicitly told at each step of the movie.

As usual, history is far more interesting. Balian was born in what is today Israel, was granted the castle Ibelin by his brother, defeated by Saladin at Hattin, and then granted amnesty by Saladin to escort his wife and child from Jerusalem. The Patriarch said Saladin was a Moslem so the amnesty didnt count, so Balian stayed and defended Jerusalem - one of the only knights to do so. Later, he was responsible for negotiating a treaty between Richard the Lioneheart and Saladin, and whilst Ibelin remained in Saladins control, Saladin gave him another castle, Caymont, in return.

The real story is so much better than the weird garbage they came up with.