“I’m breaking my rule. I’d told myself no more than two project movies in one day, after a few dragged out days on the AFI project. But here I am, with a third Edward Norton movie today. I was good about spacing them out, though. I took a dance and shower break between the first two, and a laundry and This Means War break between the next. Besides, my movie queue is at a rather small size and timing wise this 2+ hour one fits better today.
Kingdom of Heaven is a hardly registered blip on the Edward Norton scale. I’d bet that if you watched this not knowing he was involved, you would miss him entirely. That’s because for his portrayl of King Baldwin (who has minimal screentime to begin with), he’s entirely masked. This is also the first time you hear Norton with an accent, so his voice is tough to recognize. I remember not being entirely sure it was him when I saw this at the theater.
Also, on an unimportant ExpDel trivial note, all of Norton’s previous films have been grouped together on my movie wall. That’s because when the collection first got big enough to label and catalog, I tried grouping like things together. From there I just put new acquisitions at the back of the pile. I actually had to hunt for this one a bit cause I wasn’t sure how far along the wall to check for it.
I dont think I’ve seen this since buying it. At the time, I only knew Edward Norton and Orlando Bloom. Reading thru the cast list now, there’s so many other names I recognize: Liam Neeson, David Thewlis, Michael Sheen, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons. This was 2005, so I was just starting to hit my groove movie wise. Playing a lot of catch up, figuring out how to get to the theater often. We hadn’t quite hit obsession I dont think.
My God, Ridley Scott certainly seems to enjoy his epics, doesn’t he? Here’s another one for the pile. I remember that being my initial impression of the film. It was long and well, epic. I found the subject matter interesting, but the story too drawn out. We’ll see how it goes today. And in true epic fashion, you never really catch anyone’s names. I’ve also never really been a fan of big battle scenes. I’m pretty sure I’ll be grabbing laundry to put away soon.”