Two words: Hit and miss

Rating: 8/10 (18 June 2004)

These two simple words is enough to describe "Troy". There are many points and ideas that make this movie great and enjoyable, But it did miss some key points which make it less memorable and become a "classic".
First the pros, the greatest thing in this movie is actually the casting. Most of the major role is well casted and played their role very well. Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris and Diane Kruger as Helen, all of them look believable and played with a soul. Peter O'Toole as Priam and Sean Bean as Odysseus, although their little screen time (if i didn't count wrong, Sean Bean only got less than twelve minutes) are the greatest supporting role and make this movie much more depth than it should have. Eric Bana got a class A performance as prince of Troy, a warrior who love his brother, his city, and his wife and kid. Orlando Bloom give us the idea what the Paris of Troy should look like, although his emotional scene is the weakest. Diane Kruger was a surprise. She was absolutely gorgeous, and it is very important to make the audience to believe that the war of Troy is to fight for her. The reason why she was a surprise are that, her performance is the first half was great, a sad girl in love with Paris, the second half she was awful, There is no emotional you can feel from her. I almost forgot she was in love with Paris when she give a special look before Hector left the city. The second reason are credit to the makeup department. She was......normal, even unattractive in other film, while she is the gorgeous woman in this movie......WOW
I personally have no common over Brad Pitt. If you found a problem at his performance or Achilles, it will be the problem of the directing and the script. Of course his acting here felt short when compare with Eric Bana, Sean Bean or even Peter O'Toole.
The war scene, well, everyone will compare it directly with Lord of the rings. To be fair, it did have its great moment, some even better than LOTR. However it feel short of something, something had done in LOTR and make it success. Again is the problem of the Directing and the script.
It's time for those cons. While overall the movie is interesting, the director have no intention to put you in a position for you to help one side, it's like whether which side win, you simply don't care. This lack of emotion from the audience is the weakest part of the movie. The director put an equal share of screen time with the side of Troy and the side of Greece. As a result when two side are in a battle, you do not care which side will win that battle or who will die at the end. It also had a basic problem: Everyone knows the result. Of course this problem is more obvious with LOTR but Peter Jackson handled it very well. Wolfgang Petersen pay very few attention to this problem, and make the ending quite weak.
It is all just general opinion about this movie. At the end it may found that this movie is not bad, quite good actually, IT JUST NOT SPECIAL. Overall it is a movie that provide you enough entertainment as a summer (blockbuster) movie. Personally I will buy the DVD, despite all its flaws. It was fun seeing other movie with great battle scene other than LOTR.