Brad Pitt proves he is an actor and "Troy" kicks off the summer!

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2004)

Brad Pitt was much better than expected in this decent effort. It had some great moments, especially the one-on-one battles between Paris/Menelaus and Hector/Achilles. Many parts of the film were a little too over Movie-ized, like right before the Achilles/Hector fight when Hector says goodbye to everyone and shows his wife the secret passage out of the city to protect his son (who actually was thrown off a building during the siege). Eric Bana might as well have turned to the audience and winked, because anyone who did not know he was going to lose to Achilles after all of that must have been asleep. Plus, they condensed the Trojan War into a week! They made this big thing in the film about being remembered for thousands of years, and this was played up as the main reason Achilles went to the war, but all he did in the movie was fight one battle and duel Hector! The rest of the time he moped around in his tent, brooding and staring down Briseis until she slept with him. However, for anyone who was not familiar with the story of Troy, this would have been an excellent film, and there were definitely some great moments. The producers were pushing a little too hard for Oscar nods. They even had a song arranged to the score over the end credits! Plus, it was like "see Brad Pitt cry! Give him an Oscar!" Well, was certainly his finest performance to date, and overall a very enjoyable film if not based off of the Iliad.