good, but it could have been great (possible spoiler)

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2004)

Wolfgang Peterson has achieved a remarkable feat in getting together a cast that suits the books original characters perfectly. Bloom, Kruger, Pitt and O' Toole are excellent choices. They all manage to bring across the dilemma's that even Homer's flat characters face. However in displaying the personal intrigue on the one-hand and the battles on the other Petersen tends to lose focus, resulting in a rather two-hearted movie. The combat scenes would have been impressive enough to stop anyone from noticing a few years ago. But this is 2004 and we have been spoiled with battles scenes in The Lord of the Rings (1,2,3), Gladiator, etc. Scenes that would have carried a movie have been reduced to backdrops, because they only serve to tell the story not to amaze the viewer. This point has been lost on several directors and, regrettably Petersen is amongst them. The visuals have been taken care of quite admirably, but the auditive part of a movie-goer has been poorly served. The music is unoriginal. It tries to amalgamate the scores of the movies I mentioned earlier, which all underline the "been there, done that" feeling I got. Furthermore the dialog is often appalling. Especially Hector text mixes the artistic, poetic Homerian verses with a more commonplace war-rhetoric. I feels like a Shakespeare adaptation done by George Bush' speechwriters.
Finally: The movie is loosely based on Homer (and Vergil): do not expect an adaptation that follows the original very closely.
If your going to watch it: your in for a good time, but you might leave feeling a little bit unsatisfied. I know I did. (7/10)