Troy (2004)

2 out of 4

Starring: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Peter O'Toole, Rose Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Sean Bean, Saffron Burrows

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Time: 163 mins

Viewed: in home theatre

Lumbering, uninvolving film inspired by Homer's The Iliad, detailing the Greek siege of Troy after Helen of Sparta's elopement with Trojan prince Paris. All the familar characters and events associated with the war are here, including Kings Agamemnon (Cox) and Priam (O'Toole), the Trojan Horse, and warriors like Achilles (Pitt) and Odysseus (also known as Ulysses, and played by Bean), but the movie is at least 30 minutes too long and the characters (except perhaps for Bana's Hector) elicit little sympathy. Pitt is the notional lead, but his Achilles is too conflicted and serious for a hero in a supposed epic. Rare misfire for normally reliable director Petersen (In The Line Of Fire, The Perfect Storm).

(c) Joe Wong (22 January 2005)