Solid (Some small spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (14 May 2004)

Does anyone not know this story? Helen is supposed to be marrying the king of Sparta, but ends up running off with Paris, the younger prince of Troy. Sparta declares war, as does Greece, which has been eyeballin' Troy for some time and uses the incident as a pretext.
Sorrowful anti-war war epic takes its time getting going, but after about a half-hour of self-serious throat clearing we finally get to the war and the movie catches fire. Director Petersen has a nice touch with the action sequences -- he never allows the epic sweep of his story to overwhelm the focus of the camera. (The big battle between Hector and Achilles is a highlight, well staged with some interesting fight choreography.) He also manages, for the most part, to dramatize his anti-war themes gracefully: the only exception is Brian Cox, hideously miscast as Agammemon. (Cox is a character actor who specializes in Snidely Whiplash style villains; he's fine in the right role but here he overacts outrageously, pushing things into a cartoon land that Petersen mostly manages to avoid.)

Outside of Cox, though, the performances are good. Bloom is not likable, but very believable as the spoiled pretty boy Paris. Bana is even better as Hector, who he essentially plays as an all-American type, a decent patriotic guy in a bad situation. Achilles is an impossible role, really -- he is, after all, the child of a goddess -- but Pitt manages to capture something of Achilles's essential strangeness and the petulance brought on in part by being so outstandingly beyond most men.
Solid all around, except for the sleepy beginning. Recommended. With Peter O'Toole as the weary, somewhat naive King Priam and Sean Bean in a very nice turn as Odysseus.