a badly acted generic Hollywood action movie

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2005)

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this in the theater. Most of the reviews I read about it were correct; this movie isn't very good. I think it was made because of the huge success of Gladiator, but when it comes to acting Brad Pitt is no Russell Crowe. The main problem is the dialog and acting are bad, so you don't care what happens to the characters. And a story like the Trojan War is just too huge to tell in 150 minutes. Many of the characters mention the gods, but there is never time to explain who the gods were and how they played a role in the war. Basically, the writers just made up their own story, and the only way this is related to the Ilyad is it uses some of the same character names.
Also, I was expecting some great war scenes that resembled Glaidator or Braveheart. Well, you don't get them in this film. The movie had 2 good fights. The best one between Achilles and Hector. The quick choreography and jumps used by Achilles looked cool. And the other good fight was when Achilles makes his way up the hill after his boat lands. But, the huge fights between both armies were boring.
As I said, all the acting was bad, but if I had to pick who seemed most believable, it would be Eric Bana. Bloom's Paris was such a wimp and coward, I would think his father would have beheaded him because of the shame he brought from crawling away from his fight.
And the romances in this film were so unbelievable. First that Achilles would hook up with a Trojan Princess and change his ways for her. His job is to kill and he's not going to change for some woman, plus he's introduced being surrounded by two naked women, so this one woman is going to make him fall in love. Then there's Hector and his wife. The movie tries hard to make us have sympathy for her and portrays him as being this great husband. In that time, weren't all woman treated as second class citizens and men had many lovers of both sexes.
The movie also failed to explain the significance of Achilles being shot in the heel. I don't know the story, but there must have been one for Achilles to have been stopped by a couple of arrows.
Now, to the best part of the movie, Brad Pitt's body. He's shirtless a few times and shows off his rear. This is the hottest he's every looked. So, if you like Brad, I would recommend watching it for a few select scenes.
FINAL VERDICT: Pretty bad action movie. It's made worse by the acting because the actors are trying to play serious characters, but they are given a bad script to work with. You would never believe any of those people lived 3200 years ago. So, if you do watch this, watch it for one thing: Brad Pitt's abs.