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  Troy Review  

Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom - Lord of the Rings) steals Helen (Diane Kruger) from the Spartan king, prompting the latter to go running to his brother, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), king of the Greeks. Agamemnon promptly launches a full-scale war against Troy, which catapults his greatest warrior, Achilles (Brad Pitt), into confrontation with Trojan champion Hector (Eric Bana - The Hulk).



Ok now up until this film came out my knowledge of the Troy story amounted to no more than once reading a comic adaptation (plenty of kerpowing, zapping, and kersplatting, etc) so I did make sure I looked up the original Iliad by Homer to get a better idea of what to expect. Yes its true - I am the kind of person to go out and buy the original novels that films are based on to spot the bits they've cut out ('Timeline' is the worst culprit so far!). And so, armed with my freshly gained knowledge I went in and watched Troy.

With the supporting cast including Peter O'Toole as the Trojan king Priam, and even Sean Bean (playing his usual two dimensional character that he's used in both Sharp and Lord of the Rings) the cast list is impressive.

Plenty of action with special effects that compliment the fight sequences rather than overshadow them. From the CG ships, to the battle sequences which are reminiscent of the CG battles from Lord of the Rings.

A good Gladiator wannabe. However it has a few small problems.

Other than expecting Eric Banner to turn green and burst out his armour at any second for most of the film, its tempting to try and spot Orlando Bloom's Elvin ears when he picks up a bow towards the end.

Diane Kruger has a face more likely to sink a thousand ships than to launch them! And there are plenty of mistakes (most of which would spoil the film so I wont go into them here) that I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't looked at the Iliad before seeing the film.

The most obvious one being the Trojan war lasted 10 years, not 10 days as the film suggests! Also, from others that have seen it, much of the amour, ship and building designs are supposedly a few hundred years out (luckily no digital watches in sight).

And best of all - in the film the city gates are exactly one foot taller than the Horse as they bring it in (how they worked this is out is beyond me as none of the Greeks managed to get close enough to get a good look at the gates, let alone bring out a tape and measure up!).

Not really a "based on" film, more an "inspired by" one, but for all its minor faults it's still a film that's well worth watching.


Review by Paul