A Missed Opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (14 June 2006)

They give you beefed up Brad, who doesn't do bad as Achilles, though some more spear splintering rage like the Beach assault, rather than moping petulance might have made it better, an acting talent of an Eric Bana to portray a convincingly noble and believable Hector, O'Toole to deliver a heartbreaking Priam, a menacing enough Menelaus from Gleeson, though not near enough of "Menelaus, the best of men", and a passable Helen from the beautiful Kruger and whimpy enough Paris from Bloom--and all the CGI that one movie could eat, --AND the most riveting story of the last 3000 years and what do we get? Not near enough Sean Bean, no use of Diomedes as a character, AND FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, LLAMAS!!!! No kidding LLAMAS skittering through the panic shot as the alarm is raised (Those long-venturing Acheans must have had some really dandy trade routes). Then 10 years are compressed into one, Achilles sneaks into town in the Trojan horse long after he died, Agamemnon, (a nice portrayal here as well) gets killed by Briesis rather than Clytemnestra back home and Menelaus gets his from Hector, instead of "falling in love at the sight of golden Helen's breasts" and taking her home. Come on, didn't anybody read the book? And what's wrong with the gods showing up from time to time? The Greeks thought they were there and played roles in the war. Divien intervention doesn't mean they had to get the Ray Harryhausen treatment to make use of them. Peterson didn't have to have them visible at all, just the effect of their action. So now we get a half-good treatment of the war at Troy. Now the opportunity to do full honor to the Iliad is likely gone on the multi-million buck budget for this under-performing epic shortfall.