Troy makes Gladiator look like the Godfather

Rating: 5/10 (15 May 2004)

Was this the worst movie I've ever seen? Not even close. However, for such a great story, this movie is pretty horrible. I've never actually read the Iliad, so I have no idea how close this film is to that (nor do I really care that much). The plot progression in the film is interesting, for the most part, and (despite some awful dialog) flows fairly well with some glaring exceptions.
As others have talked about, Brad Pitt's character has too many dimensions for who he is supposed to be. The way in which his affection for Briseis so abruptly changes his character seems quite forced, and it's not like this is even the first time he's loved a woman (if we read into the mother's speech about him having a woman on the island to grow old and peaceful with).
Because I don't feel like spoiling the film for others, I won't go into some of the other abrupt transitions. I will, however, talk about the acting.
I already said Brad Pitt did a good job. What flaws there were with his character were not his fault, but that of the writer and some horrible dialog (this movie was chock-full of one-line "ponderous" statements).
Eric Bana, however, was tremendously flat, especially given how major a character he was. Every line was said with nearly the same emphasis. Unlike Achilles, Hector is supposed to have depth. He has a wife and child (who has the biggest baby head I've ever seen), has to defend his brother, etc...he is supposed to have reasons for doubt and emotion, etc. Instead, he's fairly tough and just kind of "there" throughout the entire movie.
Orlando Bloom, on the other hand, is just downright dreadful. It's a combination of over-acting and a poor charicature of a prince. In saying one line of dialog, you can watch Orlando Bloom's face go through about 42 different emotions...it's just so awful to see.
Those are the actors people are going to see this movie for, so I won't bother detailing the rest of the cast. Agamemnon was one dimensional, but good, and Priam was pretty interesting. The female characters are all quite hokey, but I've always thought epics were loved because you could have horrible female roles and no one would care.
As for what else is wrong with this film, I have to put some serious blame on the director. He didn't write this score, but he did have a hand in where it went in the film. Boy, did he screw that one up! The music is bad enough by itself, but the placement and volume of it and everything about how it works in the film is just awful. And then, on top of that, this film had some of the worst cinematography possible. He uses this 180-degree rotate and pan technique a number of times (too many), and we just don't care about the lay of the land in the end. He does everything he can to try and give it this "epic" feel, but ultimately it just rings hollow. The one positive thing he did do was that I felt like (especially the city of Troy) some of the shots were very reminiscent of films like The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur or other such old epic films. Unfortunately, he wasn't consistent in that style, and as such it detracted from the overall picture because these scenes are obviously going to come off as fairly childish and cheesy when compared with some of the more modern cinematic techniques.
I really don't recommend seeing this in theatres...unless you want to see a very nearly naked sixty-foot tall Brad Pitt (to which, I admit, the man is hot).
5/10