Ostentatious Garbage

Rating: 3/10 (16 January 2005)

This is an epic picture. There isn't a moment in this movie where the director, actors, writer or the musical score let you forget it. Sadly, it a very poor epic. The dialog is pretentious posturing and war-mongering. Many times in the movie, our great, god-like hero, Brad Pitt, speaks and the crowd cheers. Utter garbage.
There are wholly implausible moments in a movie that is attempting a very realistic presentation. There is a scene where Brad Pitt lops the head off a gold-plated, stone (or perhaps solid gold) statue like it was made of butter. This can work in a movie that is a fantasy or supernatural epic, but it was inconsistent with the timbre of this movie.
The acting from very good actors is consistently bad. I like Brad Pitt. He is an exceptionally talented actor (just see "12 Monkeys" for proof of that). This movie made him look like a pretty-boy B movie actor, which he worked so hard to avoid early in his career.
The director of this movie, Wolfgang Peterson, has to take the blame for this. He failed to execute on a very good, well-known story. Even the score of this movie was pompous and intrusive. There is nothing redeeming about this movie. The best part is the special effects, but that is no where close to being sufficient to save this dog.