A huge disappointment (possible semi-spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2004)

***I'm not posting any actual spoilers here, but I do mention things about characters that some readers may not want to know before they see the movie - along the lines of "Character A isn't in the movie, but is in the Iliad, and Character B acts like this". I don't give away any plot twists (not that there are any) or important story points.***
First off, if you like Homer, or are even a little familiar with the Iliad, you'll hate this movie. The scriptwriter plays incredibly fast and loose with the source text - most of the characters aren't in the movie, the timescale is all wrong, events happen out of sequence or don't bear any resemblance to the Iliad - the movie either adds events or misses important parts out; and (most worryingly) the central theme of the Iliad is lost and a tepid love story (which is never convincing) takes its place.
Oh, and there are no Gods in the movie. None.
Petersen's direction is fairly solid, although the editing is remarkably raw at times, with scenes being cut a second too soon (or too late) with frightening regularity and the camera often focuses on the wrong character half way through a scene (Achilles and Briseis are talking, for example, and half way through one of Achilles's lines, the camera focuses on Briseis (who is just sat there not doing anything) and then back to Achilles. It's stupid and irritating, and it doesn't happen just once).
The battle scenes are effective, although nothing on the scale of LOTR, which is surely the benchmark nowadays.
The acting varies wildly - Pitt is dreadful, as is Bloom (although their characters are fairly accurate, if you forgive the scriptwriter's interference). Sean Bean is... well, he's Sean Bean. I can watch the man all day, but he's essentially the same in everything, whether it's Sharpe or Boromir he's portraying. Brian Cox is entertaining, but he's a bit cartoon villainish for my taste - I kept expecting him to start twirling his moustache and tying slave girls to railway tracks. Brendan Gleeson isn't given much to work with, but does his very capable best. It should surprise no-one to learn that Peter O'Toole is the best thing in the movie, but it's not one of his best performances (or his best roles, either). The women are essentially damsels in distress - Helen is quickly reduced to "oh, it's all my fault" whining, Andromache is barely seen and we're left with Briseis to be the 'strong female character' that Hollywood seems to feel we need in every movie. Unfortunately, the filmmakers are limited by the character - she's made a slave, kidnapped from the temple of Apollo and so all she can do is be defiant. If Petersen had introduced the gods, there would have been ample scope for the women to be rounded characters, but they didn't, so the female leads are stuck with bland dialogue and window-dressing characters.
Eric Bana, who plays Hector, was the most pleasant surprise for me. I've only seen him in Hulk before this, and whilst he was solid enough, his performance was nothing special. In Troy, though, he fleshes out Hector admirably, defeating the filmmakers' efforts to reduce him to a cardboard cut-out, and as a consequence he's the only character you really care about (as I said, O'Toole's is the better performance, but Priam is only given variations on one line through most of the movie, so there's not much he can do).
This leads on to the most problematic area of the movie. The characters are so badly written that you don't care whether Troy falls or whether the Greeks are defeated.
Having ranted for a while (you may not have noticed, but I'm a fan of the Iliad and this movie bears almost no resemblance) I should point out that the movie looks pretty slick, and the action moves along quickly, so I expect the movie to do well. But the problem is, as with most of the films that Hollywood produces, there's nothing there for people who actually like film as a medium. If you want to be entertained for two and a half hours, and not think about anything, and you aren't looking for a good script, or good acting, or interesting direction; but you'd quite like to look at attractive Hollywood types on the big screen, this might be the film for you.