Didn't live up to its hype, but a good film nonetheless...

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2004)

Ever since the first trailer of "Troy" - the one with all the ships - people have been saying this would be an amazing cinematic epic, up for many Oscars, one of the greatest adventure/war movies ever made. It's not. In fact, it's very, very far away from all that. It's an inch away from being mediocre.
The plot has Trojan princes Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom) making peace with former enemy Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). Unfortunately, Paris has a hard-on for Menelaus' wife Helen (Diane Kruger) and steals her away once Hector and him leave Menelaus' kingdom. When Menelaus finds out he enlists his power-hungry brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox) to join him in war against Troy. Agamemnon doesn't care about Menelaus' personal vengeance, though; he just wants to conquer Troy. So he calls in the greatest warrior on Earth, Achilles (Brad Pitt), to lead his battle, but Achilles is a rebellious jerk and causes Agamemnon a lot of trouble.
There are a lot of super-unnecessary dramatic parts to this film that don't make much sense. One of which is Achilles' wanting to be always remembered as a great warrior but then refusing to participate in the greatest battle of all time. His excuse is that he doesn't like the politics about it...well, I don't know where Achilles got his reputation, then, 'cause it obviously wasn't by fighting wars. If it were, he'd have already known that war is all politics.
Another mistake is the subplot between Paris and Helen  it just wasn't handled correctly. Everyone knows that Paris is a whiny, selfish brat - he gets a whole damned war started because of an erection - but for some reason he was written to be liked. He's a coward and complete moron; he should be shown that way. But instead they show him as a hero to Helen and Troy...instead of the guy who single-handedly killed a peace contract and an entire country.
As far as acting goes, it varies. Most of the performances were not necessarily bad, just not good. Kruger's lines are terrible so her performance is at least forgivable. Bloom is basically confused as to whom he's playing the whole time, and it shows on screen - not a very good performance. Brad Pitt should stick to playing psychos; his action hero roles just don't work. Gleeson and Saffron Burrows do what they can with their little roles.
The film's best performances - and the best parts of the film - are Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Brian Cox and, of course, Peter O'Toole. Bana shines in this one, his first great American performance, and if there were anything Oscar worthy about this film it'd be him. Bean has a small role but he's terrific in it, another great warrior but still able to differentiate itself from his Boromir character from "Lord of the Rings". Cox is a great villain, he's very 'cool evil', much like his Stryker character from "X2". O'Toole, well, I was expecting a great performance and he gave one (the only other Oscar worthy performance of the flick).
The writing is pretty badthe old style that the characters talk in is mastered but what they're saying needed more work. All of the characters basically scream out the film's points (war is bad, war politics are bad, etc.) instead of letting us the audience take it for ourselves. There were two particularly great scenes though, the first being a sad and intense scene where Hector prepares to meet Achilles in battle, and the second being Priam (Peter O'Toole) begging Achilles to let him give his dead son a proper burial. Both scenes were intense, dramatic and perfectly acted.
Most of the technical aspects are good, but its blown out of the water by movies like "Lord of the Rings" and even old epics such as "The Ten Commandments". The action is kind of messy and unimpressive; the only good fight scene is between Bana and Pitt. The score is too repetitive, but there is a great song that plays in the credits.
It's a good half hour too long too, and gets kind of repetitive by the end, but overall it's a good film, though nothing special, 7.5/10.