How did this get past the experts?

Rating: 2/10 (2 March 2008)

When I heard that a movie was being made about the Trojan War I said, "Finally! With all the new technology out there, this should be great." I even rejoiced when I heard of the casting because I wanted to see what these actors would bring to their iconic characters. Then I saw the movie...
Alright, this movie was an absolute disgrace. The large shots of the battle sequences were visually stunning, but the acting was questionable. Brad Pitt could have done so much better. He could have easily played Achilles and played him well, but he lacked the intense rage that defines Achilles. The Iliad actually opens Book 1(entitled "The Rage of Achilles") with the phrase "Rage- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" {as translated by Robert Fagles}. Brad Pitt simply fell flat and made his character too vulnerable. Orlando Bloom did a decent job of playing the passive Paris, until he got into the part at the end with the "sword of Troy" and all that Hollywood invention. The only real actor whose performance I enjoyed the whole movie was Sean Bean and Odysseus. He did well as portraying the hero as wise, intelligent, and unwillingly present at the war. His speeches which open and close the movie were also very poignant and reflected some of the values of the Ancient Greeks. The rest of the cast simply did not even live up to the names of their characters, which was quite disappointing considering their wonderful reputations as character actors.
Now for the plot. I have been criticized by some as being "too meticulous" when it comes to movies based upon classical stories. Granted, this spawns from having heard these stories since I was two(my grandfather is a retired Classics professor), but I also just want to see these wonderful stories done correctly. This movie basically took the stories of Homer, Virgil, and countless others, ripped out the pages, burned the spines of the books, and said "Let's make a movie." The gods are not at all mentioned as real figures in the story, which is ridiculous because they influence practically everything. Various characters who survive the war (in the stories) die (i.e. Menelaus, Agamemnon). The deaths of characters occur incorrectly (i.e. the deaths of Ajax, Patroclus). Achilles is killed too late in the movie(he died before the creation of the horse) and his reasons for dying are different. In the original stories, he died while talking to his Trojan love interest, Polyxena. This brings up the character of Briseis in the film; she has been created from three different Trojan women (Briseis, Cassandra, and Polyxena). It was just ridiculous to try and combine three completely different personalities into one person. Finally, in this film Paris lives (he was killed by Philoctetes in the original story) and Helen escapes Troy (she returns with her love, Menelaus in the ancient texts). These changes drastically impacted the outcome and thus completely destroyed the story.
Overall, this movie fails to deliver solid entertainment. The spotty performances and plot changes simply produce what had the potential of a great film.