Probably one of the better 2004 films

Rating: 7/10 (24 October 2012)

I haven't watched too many medieval-type films, apart from the Lord of the Rings and so I thought the battle sequences would resemble a lot of that in LOTR. I was wrong.
The acting, the script, the plot, the characters and the score was all brilliant. There were a couple of well known actors, most notably Brad Pitt, Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom. Most of the characters were extremely likable except for Paris (Orlando Bloom) who was pretty much the jerk of the film. It was due to him that his own brother, Hector, got killed and it was due to him that Greece fell.
Apart from this issue, the plot gradually improved as the film went on and grew larger in context. The soundtrack was very well composed and the action sequences had very dark- medieval type soundtracks.
The duel between Hector and Archilles was just amazing, something which I found missing in Lord of the Rings. The build up to the battle was full of tension and emotion. The way that Archilles kept shouting out "HECTOR" was just jaw dropping. It was great to see Archilles being portrayed as not just a killer machine but as a man with a heart. Often, adaptions can fail to do such things but this film did it very well.
The assault on the beaches of Troy was brilliantly filmed and the camera angles were very efficient for the film.
Overall, perhaps one of the better films of 2004 that I've seen.