*** This movie contains bad acting ***

Rating: 5/10 (13 August 2006)

This movie has been granted good grades by many. And many have told us what is so good about this movie. The battles, the fights, the sets and locations, the clothes; it's all looking authentic, if maybe a little to good ;-)
But I find very little comments on the acting, which I think is of paramount importance in an epic.
Brian Cox, Petere o Toole, Sean Bean and Brendan Gleeson are great! The acting of Orlando Bloom is a nice surprise too, and if you absolutely have to show Helen then Diane Kruger is a nice choice. A capable and very nice looking lady.
The bad news I'm afraid is that this movie is totally wrecked by the incompetence of the main leads: Eric Bana and Brat Pitt.
Brat Pit has to play angry a lot and all he accomplishes is to look like a pouting little boy whose mum has just told him he can't have that ice-cream... as he is shouting for Hector to come and fight him, he does not seem a experienced fighter who knows how to channel is anger. He is in a child-like impatient rage, because he can't have what he wants. When he has to portray different emotions then anger he knows nothing better then to stare and sulk.
Eric Bana is little better. He suffers greatly from the silly speeches he has to deliver all the time, but where Petere o Toole gets away with it, Eric Bana succeeds only in looking a fool. Like Pitt he does not know what to do when supposed to be in anger. He frowns and gives us a shouting match.
Even the wooden horse acted better then those two...