Interesting GLADIATOR/LORD OF THE RINGS wannabe...

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2004)

OK, I'll admit it first here: i'm not a big fan of Wolfgang Peterson's films. But, suffice to say that I was dragged into the cinema by by beloved mother and sister (who love Orlando Bloom) to see it.
I can't really describe how I feel about the film, since I have just come home from viewing it, and haven't had time to digest it yet.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. The set design, cinematography, CGI and tone of the film is brilliant! My only major gripes were that the whole Paris/Helen thing didn't work - most of the time if was really obvious Diane Kruger (no relation of Freddie's?) didn't seem really interested in the movie, there was no way of telling how much her character loved Paris (Orlando Bloom), which I thought was quite important seeing as how this is the whole reason the war started!
Eric Bana was very good in role of Hector, not once did I expect him to go into a rage and turn into the Hulk! Brad Pitt stole the show for me - as Achilles, he provided for me the coolness of Tyler Durden and some cool butt-kickin' Jedi! Interesting character, a good role for Pitt....the love/hate relationship between him and Briseis worked better than the mess that Kruger tried to give...
Big-ups on the CGI though! It's very good, you could tell they were using MASSIVE during the rendering for the battle scenes! Overall the look and tone of the film bears uncanny resemblance to GLADIATOR, and the seige of Troy bears resemblance to the seige of Minas Tirth in THE LORD OF THE RINGS : THE RETURN OF THE KING, but these are only very minor gripes, and obviously Wolfgang Peterson was inspired by them....
To sum it all up : a Hollywood blockbuster based on a Greek legend, pleny of battles, romance, action and drama to keep you interested! Who cares about the minor gripes, I had fun with it!