YAWWWN...very long, very dull

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2004)

Just got back from Troy and boy is my arse aching, my mind numb, my eyes tired and tummy full from a delicious movie theater hotdog. Troy had moments where it teetered between good and not-so-good. Unfortunately for me most of the time it fell flat on its face on the not-so-good side. Its sad really because i was so eager to embrace this movie being a fan of the story from which it came. I was eager to watch massive battles unfold in front of me with dazzling effects and for the love between Helen and Paris to convince me that all the bloodshed was worth it. None of this happened. The battles became fuzzy and lost in their grandness. The CG was decent but the directing was clunky, unfocused. This is weird for me to say since Wolfgang Peterson is a very capable director. Every good, solid director has a bad shoot. I can't say that i blame the actors for uninspired performances seeing how the dialogue is nasty bad. But i will say that Orlando Bloom was especially dull and to make matters worse he was playing opposite Kruger who is about as interesting as the wood used to build the Trojan horse. Overall this movie was greatly uninspired. It seemed to be more focused on trying to re-create emotions from the Lord of the Rings trilogy with its chorus humming loudly along. They just forgot that LOTTR took time to let you know and care about the characters. And getting back to the "love" story. You'd think that a movie based on the premise of a war that was started over the love of two people would really take the time and make the effort to make you feel as if these two were really in love. What i got was that Helen just wanted a way out and Paris just wanted the ultimate trophy wife. Very long, very dull and a total YAWWWN.