Groan

Rating: 5/10 (14 June 2004)

OK, so I guessed that there would be liberties taken to condense the story into some kind of realistic length. But only Hollywood could condense the 10 Year Trojan Wars into a fortnight with 12 days off for a funeral! The Trojan Wars were only the beginning of many of the fabled Greek stories. This version tied up so many loose ends that, according to this, we have nothing. Agamemnon meeting his end in the ruins of Troy? Begad - goodbye to the continuing saga of his wife Clytemnestra......
The whole thing was risible with the exception maybe of the feeling of an epic (ie it looked great on a giant screen). Thus the cinematography was the saving grace. Nothing else held up. The script (if that's the correct use of the word) was a joke, some of the acting so wooden that the Trojan horse itself was more animated (was a copy of the script being held just out of camera shot for Eric Bana to read as he went along? Orlando Bloom? Oh dear - Orlando Droop in this one. Peter O'Toole was amusing though - trouble was he wasn't supposed to be as the defeated King Priam!)
Sad, sad and thrice sad....