CAREER INTERVENTION: Orlando Bloom.

THE CRISIS: He was the hot elven archer in "The Lord of the Rings," but Orlando Bloom's arrows have been missing the mark lately. He began the summer with a thud in Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven." This month, Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" gave the actor a second chance to prove himself. He didn't. The movie opened to a dismal $10.6 million, and critics shredded his performance. Hardly anyone in Hollywood thinks Bloom, 28, deserves all the blame for the failures, and almost everyone agrees that he was smart to work with those two directors. But he's not off the hook. "In 'Pirates of the Caribbean' he couldn't even hold his own against Keira Knightley, much less against Johnny Depp," says one indie studio head. "He's more like an ornament than a movie star." Adds a studio exec: "He's like Leif Garrett to me. If somebody says, 'Who do you want in this part?' his name never crosses my mind." Others think Bloom was pushed too fast into starring roles by studios hungry for leading men. "It's the Matthew McConaughey syndrome," says a top talent agent. "Matthew got hot with 'A Time to Kill' and then did 'Amistad' and 'Contact.' He was working with the two biggest directors around [Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis], but he was miscast and it stalled his career. It's the same thing with Orlando."

THE CURE: "Girls love him, but men do not," says the agent. "He's got to make a movie that makes him cool to guys. Brad Pitt had this same problem years ago." Movies like "Snatch" and "Fight Club" solved it. Bloom should follow suit. "He needs to get a little down and dirty," says the indie chief. "I'd make him do a movie with someone like Gus Van Sant." Good advice, says the studio exec, but "you still have to be able to do the role. I don't know if he has that hardness to him." Don't feel too bad for Bloom. He has two "Pirates" sequels on the way--and plenty of people rooting for him. "I think he's made great choices," says "Elizabethtown" producer Paula Wagner. "He's one of the finest up-and-coming actors of his generation. My advice to him would be: keep doing what you're doing. It's going fine." She may be right. "I hated every second of 'Elizabethtown'," says one studio source. "But I sat there the whole time, just because he's so cute."

PHOTO (COLOR): My precious: Insiders say he needs manpower

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By Sean Smith