Is this the phase that lunched 1000 dips?

Rating: 1/10 (4 July 2005)

The line "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" is from Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, in reference to Helen, the wife of Greek King Menelaus, stolen off to Troy by the spoiled-brat prince Paris as desired reward for deciding that Aphrodite was a pretty good-looking Goddess. One would think that Marlowe's having entered this line into the history of English literature would be enough to preserve it for us, but apparently the makers of Troy felt we needed a reminder; so when Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon decide to sail in pursuit of Helen in this film, one of them just has to say "We'll need a thousand ships!"
There are about ten other lines of dialog in the whole movie, which the audience hears repeated by every major player in some form or other, but the one heard most often is "my name will be remembered throughout history!" or it's 2nd person variant, "Your name will be remembered throughout history!" Occasionally one even hears the 3rd person variant, "His name will be remembered (etc.)!" I can no longer remember who actually says these lines in which order, because all the actors act the same, and perform the same actions, and maintain the same low-level of technical (im)perfection. I think somewhere in this film is Peter O'Toole (God forgive him!), and was that Brad Pitt pretending to be the fabled Achilles? No, I don't believe it, no producer would be that low!
Somebody wrote somewhere that this film was based on Homer's Iliad; that's like suggesting that Disney intended to make a Mickey Mouse cartoon based on Hamlet: "To hee hee hee or not to hee hee hee - whaddya think, Pluto? - Hee hee hee - down boy!"
This film makes Hollywood the number one target for a terrorist suitcase bomb; but apparently their brains are so addled there, they probably wouldn't notice the explosion. My dog writes better dialog than anyone speaks in this film, just by banging on the keyboard at random with her paws. And did I mention the horrific "acting"? Will someone please send Orlando Bloom to drama school before he gets any older? And if Brad Pitt wants to be the next TV Hercules, let him audition for that part, and leave these god-awful pseudo-epics alone.
There was clearly a lot of dough spent on production of this film; well, fools and their money are soon parted; so a word to the wise: don't spend a penny to see this; remember what your mother told you about self-abuse - do it and you'll go blind.
The gods look down, and puke.