Troy

Troy *1/2

Wolfgang Petersen, director of Das Boot, The Perfect Storm and Air Force One, tackles Homer's "Odyssey" with Troy, the three hour blood soaked historical epic starring Legolas, The Hulk, and Sinbad the Sailor. Yes, in Wolfgang Petersen's ancient Troy, Brad Pitt is Achilles, Orlando Bloom is Paris and Eric Bana is Hector. Of course there are female stars involved too, such as Diane Kruger and Rose Byrne, but in Petersen's ancient Troy, women are meaningless. Oh, and apparently people talked in a mix of mid-nineties basketball trash talk, comic book speak and Shakespeare. Oh, and Achilles talks like he's from Manhattan. Yes, setting aside pretty much everything but the crucial elements, Wolfgang Petersen makes a pleasureless action movie that seems to go on and on forever, along the way telling us nothing and creating nothing but 1 dimensional characters, especially the women. On one side, we have Achilles, the glory obsessed asshole who would sacrifice his own men in order to preserve his legacy. On the other we have Paris, who shares an intelligence with our own Paris, Paris Hilton, by stealing the King of a massive empire's wife, signing away the lives of thousands of his own troops in the process. So who exactly are we to cheer for? Hulk Smash? I think not. I'll give you three tips on Troy, AVOID, AVOID, and AVOID. Thumbs down.