Pretty nice film

Rating: 8/10 (15 May 2004)

Looking at the numbers associated with this film in a magazine, made me ponder a lot about this film as I entered the cinema today to watch the film. That's TWO HUNDRED MILLION in dollars the production budget for this film depicting the epic as written by the Greek writer Homer. A huge amount of which or $17.5 million went to Brad Pitt's pockets. That's 200 million reasons to love it or just as many reasons to hate it. That's still a lot of money to produce one film even in this day and age of films costing millions of dollars. That makes this film either an expensive instant classic in the mold of Lord of the Rings trilogy or Waterworld.
Another figure to look at is 162 that's how long this film is in minutes. Again to me this seemed a little too long at first, which depending on the, merits of the film can either seem like a breeze or be just be pure torture.
Coming into the film I knew very little of the plot line of the film as I have not had the privilege of reading Homer's work, just the basic elements as seen in a few reviews and summaries of the film. I got to say I'm quite glad that this was the case as this meant that I had a virtual 'clean slate' regarding the details of the story and this lead to me having a feeling of heightened sense of anticipation as the scenes slowly unfolded. My only gripe from this is I wish they had explored more on the development of the relationship of Helen and Paris before the war as well as more time during the Trojan horse scene. It would also be rather hard for me to comment on whether the filmmakers did a good job in converting the book into a film as I have yet to read Homer's work.
I actually found the casting quite refreshing as I was able to see some of the legends of the screen like Peter O'Toole interact with the stars of today like Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and as well as the emerging stars of tomorrow like Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger. I think the acting was good enough for most characters nothing great. I sort of found the acting of Kruger a little too raw for the role. Perhaps it's because she was nervous or she was just too inexperienced at this level. Perhaps we can see a better display from her in the future as I have heard she has a few more movies in the future.
I thought director Wolfgang Petersen did a good job in setting the mood of the film with the breathtaking cinematography. I especially loved the exterior shots of both the Greek and Trojan armies marching against each other into battle. The costumes and props were also looked quite good. I thought the film score though was a little average at this point nothing very much to talk about.
Overall it was a pretty solid film with a lot of good points and was well worth both my money as well as the production companies.