Good fun, nice eye candy

Rating: Null/10 (17 May 2004)

Saw it on Sunday afternoon with my girlfriends and we all enjoyed it. I would definitely classify this as a chick flick, but one that the guys can probably enjoy as well.
There were definitely some cheesy moments (i.e., lots of Brad Pitt staring pensively into the distance), but the battle sequences were well done, and the scenery was beautiful. There was some gore, but many of the fight scenes were staged very theatrically and gracefully.
Brian Cox was great as Agamemnon, and Peter O'Toole gave a really moving performance. Brad Pitt was OK--fun to look at, and he managed to convey the childish moodiness of Achilles, but Eric Bana was the real standout for me. Beyond the fact that he was gorgeous, I thought he played Hector well as the moral and reasonable center of the movie.
Thematically, I felt there was an interesting ambiguity to the filmmakers' attitude toward war. The idea of attaining lasting glory through battle was repeated often, but there much less of the glee that Homer displayed in describing the blood and gore of battle. The ultimate senselessness and devastation of war were definitely conveyed at the end of the movie, but we were still left with the idea that a great warrior's name will be remembered long after he is gone.