Great Film. BANA was FANTASTIC!

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2004)

I was one of those people who had been eagerly anticipating the release of Troy for many many months and I thought that I would thoroughly enjoy it, and for the most I did. To be honest, the screenplay wasn't totally true to the original tale but hey, how many people are really gonna have read the Iliad? It was a very good adaption, very 'edge-of-the-seat' stuff there. The war, though long, was extremely exciting, though not for the faint hearted. I had never seen anyone get their throat sliced so graphically before I saw it, but some very good choreography there. The fight between Hector and Achilles is probably writing itself into cinematic history. It was superb and very emotional. Bana's performance gave me a huge lump in my throat. The costuming is very good, Bob Ringwood did a top job with that. The music was a bit disappointing though. It was quite monotonous and not exciting enough.
Now the more important aspects, however, it wasn't, surprisingly, the main cast members that did the most fantastic jobs. Brad Pitt made a good Achilles and I think the arrogance made a very nice touch to the character. Brian Cox was a superbly evil Agamemnon, I was sitting through most of the film wanting to spear the guy! I was though, very disappointed with Orlando Bloom. He doesn't seem to be getting any roles in which he doesn't play a softly spoken, lovelorn wimp and it really would be great if someone could give him a role which doesn't give him this stereotype and doesn't focus solely on his ability to fire arrows.
The supporting cast were absolutely fantastic. Peter O'Toole as Priam, Sean Bean as Odysseus, Rose Byrne as Briseis (who I actually think is the more beautiful) and Garrett Hedlund as Patroclus. Great acting there from them all. Now I come to my last few points. Although her role was very small Saffron Burrows was super. She played Andromache, wife of Hector and she really showed off her ability to totally capture the audiences attention.
And of course Eric Bana as Hector. He absolutely made the film for me. He was nothing less that totally fantastic. You could tell that he put his all into his role and he created such emotion within it. I can do nothing else but rave about his performance. Definitely the star of the show and if he continues to act like that, even with his policy of 'one movie a year' then he's going to get himself written down as one of the greats.