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Fantastic!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The story is pretty well known, at least in some sectors of social space, so I'll just make some observations as I watch this longish version through.Briefly: It's about 1200 BC. Paris, a young man of Troy, falls in love with, Helen, the wife of a Greek king and runs off with her to his home. This annoys the Greeks. They launch a thousand ships and wage a ten-year war against the walls of Troy. The Trojan forces include the noble Hector. The Greeks have Achilles and the wily Odysseus. The war is brutal but finally ends, although the in-family tsuris persists through the post-war period.First, half an hour in, I haven't seen anything in the wardrobe or weapons that was disturbing but I'm not a historian. True, some of the armor looks left over from a movie about the Roman Empire, and in battle the swords don't look like Greek choppers but like the Roman gladius, but it doesn't poison the story. What I definitely could not wrap my head around was Achilles -- a muscle-bound, bald-headed street thug who would have fit very well into one of Cinecitta's sword-and-sandal epics starring Steve Reeves from the 1950s or, better yet, into a modern urban action movie. All that's missing are the barbed wire tattoos. There have been complaints that it wanders too far from Homer's original but so far it resembles the original story, at least the translation I read years ago. I doubt anyone know what the ACTUAL original was like. Homer's version was written down hundreds of years after the event. And I understand it was all memorized oral folklore. The iambic pentameter was a mnemonic device. If the orator screwed up the meter he'd know he'd made a mistake, but it's easy to imagine that improvisation to bring back order was a common event. I doubt that Homer hewed to closely to the hundreds-of-year-old original tale, but then there might not have been that much left for Homer to hew to.At least this one has the gods and goddesses mucking around with things, although not much. Paris gets the golden apple for choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful of three competing contestants, and she backs Paris in the Trojan War. Next time he should be a bit more pragmatic and choose Athena. Even if she had a face like the rear end of an International eighteen wheeler, she knows about war. Nothing here though about Aphrodite back Troy in the war. There are also complaints about Helen not being worth a war because she's not as bewitchingly desirable as she should be, but in my opinion she looks just fine and would do in a pinch. She's spirited, slender and blond, with a piping voice, a la gamin, and looks vaguely French. If you watch it, you'll see what I mean.I have no memory of Paris on his first visit to Troy being pitted in games against the finest Trojan warriors. (He beats Hector in a knife fight in the arena.) Maybe the scenes were added to juice up the story with more action and to turn Paris into more of a hero, or it may be that my brain is turning to tofu, in which case I will leave it for analysis to the American Culinary Institute. I don't recall that Helen was first kidnapped by the agents of one of the Greek kings either. It looks like padding. But the honorable kidnapper is played by Stellan Skarsgaard whose work I've always admired, whether his character is good or evil. The other performers who stand out are John Rhys-Davies as King Pryam, James Callis as the sneaky Agamemnon, and Rufus Sewell as the honest Menelaus.In the end, only the bare bones of the original remain. We hardly see Odysseus. There is no Patroclus. Achilles never has a hissy fit over his girl friend being taken away. But there IS the Trojan Horse, Achilles dragging Hector's body around the walls of Troy, Paris killing Achilles with an arrow to the heel, and Cassandra's prophecies being realized. A revenge incident is tacked on at the end to provide a sense of justice prevailing. The underhanded Agamemnon is murdered in his bath by his jealous wife, Clytemnestra. But that's from a different play altogether. It's like taking a shoe horn and working the Doolittle raid into the climax of the wretched "Pearl Harbor," only there to provide a feeling of justice having been done.I kind of enjoyed it. The production values are high, the use of CGIs is modest and effective, the photography isn't too gloomy or in high contrast or tinted a ghoulish green, and the editing is sane and classical instead of lightning fast and disorienting. It's a sad story but a very human one. The only characters with truly out-sized flaws are Agamemnon and Achilles. All the other characters are shown as admirable in some way, or at least understandable.

Unlike the epic TROY, which spent much time and money recreating the spectacle of the Trojan War with CGI, the emphasis here is on the political ambitions and prophecies leading up to the start of the siege of Troy. Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon gives a performance (as the man who would conquer Troy) which eerily evokes Oliver Reed at his sinister best, as he makes it clear that the romance of Helen and Paris was merely a convenient excuse for the events that followed, and that the war came out of his own thirst for conquest. Sienna Guillory is attractive as Helen, but her role is rapidly reduced to that of a bystander in the great events that swirled around her. And the film makes clear its logic about this: how could a woman be responsible for a war in a time when even princesses were chattels of the royal houses to be auctioned off in marriage for political gain? As it deals more intimately with its characters and looks more closely at social power structures and gender roles of the period, this film is much more interesting as a human drama than the rather empty spectacle TROY.

The film Helen of Troy, produced by Ted Kurdyla, is a tragic movie inspired by one of the greatest epic stories of all time, Homer's The Iliad. Released in 2003, the 2 hours and 57 minute film depicts the legendary battle between the Greeks and the Trojans over love, wealth and honor. It all began when the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, fell in love with Paris the son of King Priam of Troy. Though married to King Menelaus of Sparta, she left him and went with Paris to Troy. Grieved by the departure of Helen, he asked help from his brother Agamemnon who led the Spartan army to attack Troy. For 10 years the Greeks and the Trojans battled. Wearied by the battle, the Greeks decided to make a gigantic wooden horse to enter the city and defeated the Trojans, thus ended the war. Menelaus narrates the story as he reminisces the events that took place. It was very effective because he was a witness to both Agamemnon's intent to sack Troy's city and Helen's love for Paris. If someone else told the story, chances are, it will be one-sided. Like, if it was Helen, it would probably be focused on her love story. Or, if it was Agamemnon, it will be about the gory encounter with the Trojans.John Kent Harrison, the director of Helen of Troy, was able to bring into life The Iliad. The actors and actresses gave justice to the roles they played. Although there were scenes where it was very obvious that the background was only a painting, the movie redeemed itself with the help of its lighting, sound effects, and script. These elements contributed to the effectiveness of the production because the audience felt that they were part and parcel of the whole. For this and its historical value, it deserves 5 stars.

The film "Helen of Troy" is based on the fictional epic novel, "The Iliad", which has been viewed by many to be the greatest war story ever told. It begins with Paris, a young Trojan Prince who was visited by three goddesses asking him to decide on who of them was the fairest. He chose Aphrodite, the goddess of Love and Beauty, when she offered to make the most beautiful woman in the Aegean fall in love with him. She showed him Helen, and from then on, Paris and Helen were destined to meet. Some time later, the Prince was sent by his father, King Priam of Troy, to make peace with the Greeks. Helen was married to King Menelaus of Sparta then, but that didn't stop her from sailing away with the man she truly loved. That started the war between the Trojans and the Greeks, and it lasted even longer because of the men's selfish pride. Agamemnon, Menelaus' older brother, was High Chief of the Greeks and also the most ruthless. In the end, his wife Clytemnestra killed him for causing her sister, Helen, so much pain.I really enjoyed the movie and I found the scenes highly interesting. But even then, once compared to the modern film "TROY", it does not excel much in the battle scenes. For me this is understandable considering the low efficiency of productions during that time as opposed to the outstanding technology we have now. The acting was also commendable, but still also with less emotion than of the actors in "TROY". I think that over-all, the film was good and it covered all the details that were necessary to maintain the quality of the book. Out of a rating of 5 to 1, 1 being the highest, I would give "Helen of Troy" a 2. This is not only because of the great entertainment and information it provided me but also because that's the rating it deserves.