Your wife has left with the Trojans.

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2004)

As, no doubt, countless of reviewers and amused viewers picked up on, the script needs work. Wait, scrap that, the script needs lots of work.
The problem 'Troy' faces is not only that it's just not possible to cut Homer's enormous poem into a nigh-on 3 hour movie. The problems that 'Troy' faces are thus:
1.) Badly cast. Diane Kreuger, although pretty, is plain and vapid, and does not belong here. 2.) Brad Pitt is almost as empty, although he does shine in battle when he doesn't have to say anything.
3.) Complete lack of 'reality'. The sets, although large and budget-heavy, never convey the sense of a lived-in world like the epic 'Gladiator' did.
4.) Hackneyed script. It's actually so awful in parts I held my head in my hands and stifled my laughs.
5.) Orlando Bloom. I'm amazed his career has lasted as long as it has.
6.) Bad pacing. Over two hours and then Troy is razed in minutes.
7.) Inexplicably, Achilles is taken down by an arrow to his heel. Being that the movie strays away from the supernatural aspect of the 'original', there's no reason for this. They might as well stabbed Achilles in the head, so to speak.
8.) The music is overbearing and didn't fit in the slightest. In fact, were the music to have been replaced by something more 'fitting', some scenes would have been a lot more enjoyable.
9.) Miserable cinematography during the 'brawls' that took place outside Troy's walls. Absolutely impossible to make out who was who and what was what. 'Gladiator' did such scenes with far more panache.
As much as this rendition of war was poor, it did have some memorable scenes. The mano a mano fight scene, especially between Achilles and Hector (Eric Bana in perhaps the only decent role along with O'Toole) were startlingly realistic and brutal enough to have viewers clenching teeth. However, since such scenes were short and few, the bitter taste of the rest of the movie sours out those memories.
A shame.