so, despite having tremendously high expectations for troy that could have potentially been disappointed, i rather liked the movie. there was action, there was drama, there were family values… what more could you ask for in a movie? maybe now when i think of the term “trojan”, the image of a ribbed-for-her-pleasure condom won’t pop into my head. not that i’m constantly thinking about condoms or anything — or even ribbed pleasure, for that matter.

anyway… the movie starts off great. we are introduced to intriguing characters, the story begins to take flight, and the first shot of brad pitt is of his bare ass. although troy was jam-packed with goodness, there were some chunks of boring lodged in the cracks of the movie. it loses a bit of steam in the middle where, i suppose, we get to know the characters a little more intimately. and for a war that lasts a decade, it seems to go by really fast — like, “one week” fast.

helen of troy did not appear to have “the face that launched a thousand ships”; she sort of looks like a prettier version of leelee sobieski, so i couldn’t admire her beauty to its full potential. orlando bloom’s character, paris, was a complete bitch; i wanted to kick him real hard. by the end of the movie, though, bloom essentially reverts back to legolas, so it’s all good. (having boromir there also added to the lord of the rings feel.) eric bana turned in what i think was the best performance of the movie; let’s just hope people forget he was in the hulk.

the theme of godly intervention versus human action and responsibility was smattered rather obviously throughout the film, but i guess in a big blockbuster hit like this, it’s sort of necessary to take the most ignorant viewer by the hand and lead them through the values of the film. there’s not too much i can criticize about the story arc, since the core elements of it remain true to homer’s illiad (a lot of it has been hollywood-ized). i fear all i have left for you is peter o’toole’s cracked-out stare.