Bad quality film with good cast.

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2004)

To be honest, I didn't have great expectations, since I'm not a very big fan of Wolfgang Petersen. I also quite love the Iliad, but I have learned to accept the fact that a film can never be true to the book to the last detail.
The first hour was kind of inexpressive, the pictures were ok but not extraordinary, the light was almost bad compared to other great productions, also the make up and costume departments didn't do their best jobs.
Although the movie needed a long warm-up it started to get thrilling after about an hour. I liked the fact that there was not too much focus on Paris and Helen (one had the impression after seeing the trailers, but trailers can be misleading a lot!) - Paris was almost perfectly personated by Orlando Bloom, who gave his performance a wonderful cowardly touch without being embarrassed by it. Eric Bana and Brad Pitt did a good job as usual, also Pete O'Toole was very touching.
Outstanding was the performance of Rose Byrne. I think she rescued the lacks in the plot. Impressive were also the choreographies of the man-against-man fights. I was sad to see that Kassandra and Eneas were (almost) cut. There should have been a bigger focus on the greek gods as well.
All in all, it was an entertaining night at the movies, if you're not too prissy about true adaptations.