Troy

This is a great epic spectacle of Homer's legendary Iliad. Although the movie displayed its own version of the Iliad, it was still a magnificent movie to watch. I thought Brad Pitt did a good job of acting as Achilles.

Even though there were thousands of real extras hired to be Trojan and Spartan warriors, there was heavy use of CGI to recreate legendary battles of tens of thousands of killers. You can tell some of the battle scenes looked fake, but it was still visually stunning nonetheless. The movie featured lush scenery also.

The problem with the movie, however, was that it felt emotionally sterile. The story just felt like a visual retelling of Greek mythology rather than a stirring movie about love and war. The movie takes out all the parts about the gods fighting in the war to make the movie more realistic. Otherwise, it could have become another Clash of the Titans.

The Story: The love story of Paris of Troy and Helen of Sparta seemed like another famous forbidden love story, Romeo and Juliet. Paris (played by Orlando Bloom, not Paris Hilton) falls in love with the King of Sparta's gorgeous trophy wife, Helen. They both sail away to Sparta. Paris' big brother, Hector, gets mad at him, but protects his kid brother and his crush. The Greeks wage war upon Troy for this treachory and bring along the legendary warrior, Achilles, to fight for them. Achilles leads the Greeks to a successful first day's battle. Later on, he falls in love with an acolyte of Apollo. He uses his charm as Brad Pitt and beds the virgin temple girl.

The avaricious King of Sparta, Menelaus, challenges Paris to a duel for stealing and humping his wife. Menelaus starts spanking the pretty boy's ass. Paris runs to his big bro for help. Since Paris ran away instead of fighting to death, the Greeks decide to wage full on war against Troy. During another battle, Hector kills Achilles' little cousin. Achilles gets pissed off and challenges Hector to a duel. Achilles kicks Hector's ass. After the Greeks allow fourteen days of mourning for Troy's fallen hero, Hector, Odysseus (from Homer's other famous story, The Odyssey) comes up with a cunning plan to take over Troy with the infamous Trojan Horse. The Greeks sneak into Troy with the giant wooden gift and slaughter all the Trojans. Achilles tries to save his recently deflowered temple girl from the clutches of the evil King of Greece, Agamemnon.

Orland Bloom spots Achilles and somehow, through a magical turn of events, suddenly turns from a wimp into the legendary Elven fighter, Legolas from the Lord of the Rings and shoots an arrow into Achilles' heel. Paris/Legolas shoots some more arrows at him and Achilles kicks the bucket. Achilles will be remembered forever. The End.


Although the acting was good, the actors seemed to be just like characters from an ancient Greek legend instead of appearing to be real people. The characters were complex, but it was hard to develop any strong emotions for any of them. The movie felt lacked any soul. Even though many tears were shed, I felt nothing.

The Highs: Visually spectacular; the movie keeps Achilles immortal by keeping his story alive; a good retelling of Homer's Iliad; Legolas from LOTR is back!

The Lows: Emotionally sterile.

The Verdict: Brad Pitt's Achilles' Heel is women.

My rating: B, 84.