It is not the actors' fault.

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2004)

I feel I had reasonable expectations of this movie: a classic tale of war to be greatly enhanced in its retelling by incredible fight scenes and terrific actors. I basically assumed the script structure and basic direction would be good enough not to get in the way of the movie. I was so wrong.
This movie is awful. The storyline has no linearity and no resonance. I am not even critiquing the liberties taken with Homer's work. It is just that in terms of how the story in the film is told, there is no clear vision. Obviously, the battle scenes are pretty exciting, but the rest of the time there are serious lags of interest. There are several film sequences in Troy that could have had remarkable impact, but were lost in boring still shots. While the fight scenes were well-staged, many other scenes were poorly formatted and blocked. The script could have employed a few devices to make the story and its characters more coherent and cohesive. These lapses in the screenplay, cinematography, and direction produced a sodden, overcooked mess of a movie.
That said, the actors in the movie did a great job. The most worthwhile elements of the movie are Eric Bana and Brad Pitt. They are tremendous in their roles of Hector and Achilles. Sean Bean, Peter O'Toole, Saffron Burrows, and Rose Byrne are very good as well. Brian Cox, though a brilliant actor, is a bit over the top in his role of Agammenon. Orlando Bloom as Paris is a little lost, but his character isn't very well-written. Lastly, while Diane Krueger is beautiful, she is somewhat useless in her role of Helen of Troy. All in all, the actors did the best they could with what they were(or weren't) given.
This movie should have been better.