Well, yes, in a word...

My response to a friend's email. Says he: "I know what Troy is, silly! I heard it's terrible."

My response:
Yes, if you go into it with high expectations. I heard that it was the worst movies ever. And really? the fight scenes are WAY too long.

Helen and Paris don't have a lot of Chemistry, but I blame that on Orlando Bloom, because he's hot, but not very good at generating the pretense of "I love her and it's believable." He's far too steeped in stage, which is what he was trained to do. You feel NO connection to Helen - her accent is about the best thing about her.

The entire movie, I was like, "Ya know what? Just send Paris and Helen back to Greece and have them killed. Everyone will be much happier." In fact, when Hector brings that up at the very beginning, my gut was saying,"YES! DO IT!" But then I realized that I had another 3 hours to go, so it was unlikely. There's ABSOLUTELY no reason for this war, because frankly, neither of them is likable in the least.

Brad Pitt? well, I do have to say that his stock went up with me. He honestly portrays a man smitten with someone he shouldn't love, although every now and again you get a glimpse of Joe Black, which is disturbing. Also, his 'accent' is distracting. Those two slight things not withstanding, he does a very good job. The scenes of Achilles and Briseis (Bri-say-is - very cool name) are actually very good, which I also give credit to Rose Byrne. She's probably the most believable woman (actress) in the film.

Sean Bean steals his scenes - he's a phenomenal, understated actor, and Eric Bana is believable as Hector. Also? Eric Bana is HOT and a GOOD actor. Specially w/ a beard. Manly Man. mmmm. (Also - 6'3" :) )

So, I would say, the overall premise of having all these huge (and pretty!) actors together is ok, but the director and producers tried too hard ("We want to make it E.P.I.C!") and should have focused on the personal more, and less on the fighting. Which, they did a lot of the personal, too, so I can't see how they'd do it more, but the fight scenes were pretty much unnecessary.

The CG were good overall, because you didn't notice it, except for the 1000 ships scene("The face that launched a thousand ships"*).

The "evil" guys were a bit too evil, but when you have blah actors like Orlando Bloom and the-girl-who-played-Helen-so-badly-I-didn't-even-bother-looking-up-her-name, you have to make up a reason to like them, which means putting absolute evil opposite of them. It still didn't work.

And then Paris (a crap character) hits Achilles' heel (a relatively likable character) and steals from Briseis and Achilles their love, so then you REALLY hate Paris. (Enter Meg Ryan singing "I hate Paris in the Springtime, I hate Paris in the fall, I hate Paris, oh why oh why do I hate Paris? Because My love is theeerrrreee....with his slut girlfriend!" - French Kiss)

Overall? Should you see this movie? Sure, unless you're my mom. (Mom, you'll hate it.) It's mediocre but not off-putting entertainment. And only on DVD, so that you have the ability to skip the fight scenes an get the gist of the plot.

*Ok, and it's a good thing that they did find someone who was beautiful to play Helen. It's also a good thing that the phrase isn't "The personality that launched a thousand ships" because this actresses' personality? It wouldn't have launched a dinghy.

Of course he replied: "Whoa, there cowgirl, that's quite the review! Ever thought of being a film critic? You should post this on your blog."

So I did.