Good film Homer would not recognize

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2004)

Entertaining epic marred by bizarre plot alterations with surprisingly good performances, esp. Brad Pitt and Sean Bean.
Intelligent scripting could have made this film a great classic but insipid writing limited its scope. Cardboard villainizing of Agamemnon and killing him and Menelaus only embarrass the film. The Homeric epics are overflowing with drama and adventure, why make foolish changes?
(Helen left her 9 year old daughter behind in Sparta, was afterwards forgiven, was Menelaus' queen when Odysseus' son visited years later. Clytemnestra, Helen's sister and wife of Agamemnon, murdered the king on his return from Troy. Paris died of his wounds.)
Great action. Film had an authentic air but the funeral use of coins (Coinage was invented c. 680 BC, 500 years later) distracted.
Petersen and Benioff should be ashamed of their disappointingly flawed, simplistic script.