- Rating (7)
Putting aside all the moans from literary purists about whether Wolfgang Petersen's so-called epic adaptation sticks to Homer's poem (a real epic, I can remember falling asleep at school...), the problem here seems to be how to stuff a turkey into a chicken.
A turkey this is, make no bones about it, despite the mix of Hollywood A-listers, including Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom, stalwart Brits, Peter O'Toole, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson and Aussie up-and-comer, The Hulk's Eric Bana.
On the chicken side of things, it should be pretty obvious to Petersen (who helmed the excellent Das Boot and The Perfect Storm) that just over two hours is not nearly enough time to do the job properly.
When Trojan prince Paris whisked off Greek king Menelaus' wife, he set a 10-year siege in motion. But here, one minute the Mycanean Greeks and their allies are tossing their buckets and spades on the beach, looking as though they might all suddenly have a Life Of Brian moment and burst into We're All Going On A Summer Holiday, the next it's 40-foot wooden horse time.
Ten years gone in a flash, with the final battle for Troy almost a blink and you'll miss the moment, a mere flurry of swords, sandals and severed limbs.
And then there's Helen.
The face that launched a thousand ships! Sorry, but Diana Krueger's washed out prettiness couldn't launch a rubber duck in the bath. Pity Petersen didn't rethink his casting of the leading actress and use Saffron Burrows (who plays Hector's wife) or Siri Svegler playing Polydora, the feisty cousin kidnapped by the Greeks, who has the luck to end up horizontal under Pitt's amorous Achilles.
It's not as though we can't see where all those dollars - $200 million (R1.38 billion) - have gone. The scale of the film is obviously BIG and there's some almighty sets. And, unlike Gladiator, which used CGI - multiplying a smaller amount of extras many times over to great effect - there are hundreds of paid extras toting togas.
Sean Bean and Bana's heroic Hector also come up trumps and there's a great fight scene between Bana, as Hector, and Pitt. Brad's beautiful pouting naughty boy Achilles (yes, you get to see the bod naked twice, but it's far too tastefully done...) also has his moments.
But Bloom's Paris, despite the fact that he actually gets a Legolas bow and arrow moment, is laughably bad.
Whereas the rest of the youngish bloods have gone all out to beef up the muscles, Bloom's got nil in the upper arms department and he also gets to utter one of the worst lines in the script.
On realising that his tryst with Helen is about to cause a bloody battle, where thousands will die, Paris suggests they leave the city of Troy.
"But, how would you live?"
"I could hunt deer."
Not with those arms mate.
Admittedly, on encountering that horse left by the crafty Greeks bearing gifts, Paris has his one light bulb moment.
"Burn it."
Unfortunately for those who call Troy home, whereas we all know about Greeks and gifts, O'Toole's king sees the abandoned horse as "a gift for the gods".
Still, if lingering shots of Brad's beautiful bod, post coitus, turn you on, go forth tomorrow, you won't be disappointed. But an "epic" this ain't, although it has its smouldering moments, mostly of Brad's butt, which, at 40, still has the phwoar! factor.