Good film, even though it wasn't terribly true to the source

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2004)

This film did a particularly good job of defining Achilles and Hector to a modern audience. Agamemnon was a bit over the top, but so he was in the Iliad as well. The relationship between Achilles and Briseis was a bit more sympathetic than in the original - heck, Achilles was in general more sympathetic than he probably ought to have been, but who can hate Brad Pitt?
My biggest disappointment was that they winnowed the royal family of Troy down to Hector, Andromache, Paris, and Priam. Hecuba and Polyxena were my favorite characters-not-appearing-in-this-film, and I was sad not to see them. Also, Helenus, Troilus, Cassandra, Ilione, Polymnestor Creusa, Aeneas, Laodice, Laocoon, etc., etc., etc., failed to show up. But the writer and director do a good job making a full story of it without the richness that the full royal family of Troy gave to the original.
There were also more than a few instances where the story departs from the original epic (see above re: Briseis). Also there's no way they can make the sequel "Clytemnestra" off this ending. And from what I remember the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was somewhat 'different' in Homer.
All that said, I love film adaptations of the Classics on general principle.
Even if they fall short of the literary scope of the original. And particularly when they make the story accessible to modern audiences. This film did a lot of both.
Overall, it was good but it wasn't true.