Big, Wooden and there is a horse too

Rating: Null/10 (13 May 2004)

This movie does not live up either to the reputation of the director (well, think das Boot) or the frenzy of positive spin I have been seeing on the web in the last few weeks. For the record, I saw this in English in a Swiss cinema, which meant an intermission (very roughly cut too, I almost saw the scissors).
The film starts well; some cheeky humor and nods to the Harryhausen school of bad guys (cue 8 foot tall warrior). Brian Cox is pantomime-level bad guy number one. Brad P is lovingly shot in a variety of poses (running about) and we all settle back for a splendid night of entertainment. So far so good.
Bring on Helen! Bring on Paris! From here it goes awry. Rather than go through the (hours) of dialog and pick out the best of the cheese, suffice to say that a) there are enough moments when the cringe-o-meter flickers up to 10 to have warranted bursts of incredulous laughter in the cinema b) enough bizarre accents to sound like an acting lesson c) enough sweeping panoramas and beautiful people to make if feel like midweek in Cannes.
This movie proves a lot of things, namely -
that when he is not confined to a small space, the director seems lost.
that Peter O'Toole needs a better hairstylist (Siegfried! Roy!).
that Brad Pitt is not able to carry a movie.
that Legolas should have stayed in the woods (awful, awful, awful).
that quite a few English soap opera and movie actors were happy to have their day in the sun on this movie set.
that the time of sword and sandals movies is now passed.
In summary, a very disappointing movie, no coherence, no real feeling and just a huge amount of money thrown at a project that could have been a wonderful set of movies.