Don't expect the Iliad

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2005)

If you are expecting the epic story in the Iliad, you may be disappointed. I enjoyed this film because it was more like a "what could really have happened" type of adaptation. To me, that's what made the movie. If you are a big fan of the Iliad, I think you'll enjoy this flick a lot better if you're aware that it's an *adaptation*, not a retelling of the book! It has used the IDEAS from the book; the characters, situations, etc. But this movie is loosely based around those ideas to tell its own tale.
The movie has its own style for the story of the Trojan war, and in my opinion it tells the story as well as the book, just in a very different way. This can at first be very annoying, and to enjoy the film you have to be willing to accept that the story is its own. The characters will not behave quite as expected, and the feel of the story is totally different.
If you haven't read the Iliad, you'll probably like the movie. If you have, you should forget the book for a while and think of the movie as a n unrelated story, then decide afterward whether it was a butchery of the Iliad or a story that can coexist separate from the book.