Entertaining but lacking character development

Rating: Null/10 (25 May 2004)

I found this film entertaining, something I would watch again, but extremely disappointing. I was expecting something as good as Gladiator but it didn't even come close. My main complaint is that there are so many characters that we barely know anything about any of them. We learn that Achilles is angry, has a cousin and falls in love, and thats about it, and considering Paris' and Helen's love is meant to be so strong that it causes a war, there were barely any scenes with them and we barely knew anything about them. This lack of character development meant that I didn't feel much empathy for any of them. I think it would have been better if they had chosen to focus on less characters.
Before the film I didn't know anything about the story of Troy, but from watching it I could tell that it had been changed a lot. I suspected that the love story between Achilles and Paris and Hector's cousin wasn't in the original story as it seemed to be tacked on. Again, that was very weak. The acting was good apart from a lot of them seemed to struggle to keep a British accent (Eric Bana, Brian Cox and Diane Kruger). Orlando Bloom seemed to use the exact same few expressions he used all the way through Lord of the rings especially when they gave him a bow and arrow. Brad Pitt stood out to me even though he didn't have a very good script to work with, and the fighting scenes were pretty good too.
I was really disappointed but it was entertaining so I'd buy it anyway. It's worth seeing. I think if the story was handled by a different director, such as Ridley Scott, Mel Gibson or James Cameron, it would have been a lot better. I'd give it 6 out of 10.