Lacking and uninspired

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2005)

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie for two reasons: (1) it was supposedly based on Homer's Iliad and (2) it looked like it was made in the same vein as Gladiator. Unfortunately, neither predispositions were enough to rate this movie higher than "fair."
To say this movie was based on The Iliad is, well, acceptable in so far as the characters and events are historically accurate, but other than that it's not a very genuine adaptation. Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles was bland, and his acting was as monotone as Ben Stein's voice.
The action sequences should have been and could have been much better had they not been done with an overtone of utter blandness. They just didn't have the same spirit of large, grandiose battles like we've seen in Gettysburg, Braveheart or Gladiator.
Orlando Bloom was a cowering simp in this movie, and if that was his intent for his portrayal of Paris, then he nailed it quite nicely. Otherwise, the movie would have been better off without him.
The film's only saving grace was Eric Bana's portrayal of Hector and Sean Bean's depiction of Odysseus. They make the movie bearable for the two-plus hours I waited for this movie to take off - which, ultimately, it never really did. Troy falls well short of it's literary counterpart's brilliance.