In 1193 B.C., Prince Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom) kidnaps legendary beauty Helen (Diane Kruger) from her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta, setting the two nations on a collision course for war. The Greeks, including Achilles (Brad Pitt), marshal their entire armada, sail to Troy and begin a decade-long siege. Eric Bana plays Hector, the leader of the Trojan forces, and Sean Bean is the wily Ulysses (of Trojan Horse fame).

At times I wasn’t sure whether I was watching some elaborate pissing contest or simply a bunch of men playing dress-up having a grand ole time. The casting of Orlando Bloom as Paris and Eric Bana as Hector was a stroke of genius. They were rather convincing as the brothers, Paris and Hector. Sean Bean also stood out as Ulysses. Diane Kruger was a good Helen but the ton of black eyeliner, ultimately made her less of a natural beauty. Brad Pitt gave an uneven performance. At times he was a little too aloof or carefree to be such a brutal warrior–he seemed to drift right out of character. One aspect of the film that ruined his character portrayal were the constant allusions to the quest to be remembered throughout time. The movie started and ended that way, everything Achilles said reiterated this theme, until his death. We got it, he wanted to be remembered (and he was), come up with some other dialogue please. But Brad Pitt was not nearly as bad as Brian Cox as Agamemnon. I never imagined Agamemnon as an old fart — maybe I will have to take another look at the Iliad. The fighting scenes were convincing and I think they should have left out some of the computer generated stuff since it wasn’t that impressive. At two hours and 48 minutes, the film could have replaced about 40 minutes of included material with 40 minutes of the gods. The gods actually provide some of the more interesting dynamics in the Iliad and add another level of understanding of the conflict. Their inclusion would have made the film more epic, although there was so much drama in the heavens that may be its own movie. Yet, it seemed sort of a cop-out to exclude them. All-in-all, Troy is not the best movie I’ve seen, but I was entertained enough to make it quite painlessly through the 2 hours and 48 minutes — a good popcorn movie.