Written by David Benioff Directed by Wolfgang Petersen Running Time: 2:43 Rated R for graphic violence and some sexuality/nudity. B

Troy was a very impressive and solid film, if not one that left a lasting impression on me. While I was watching it I kept thinking, this is a pretty good film.

Agamemnon wants all of Greece to himself, so he does what any good ruler would do, and that is attack anyone and everyone. His brother, the King of Sparta meanwhile, is trying to broker a peace agreement with Troy. But one of the peacekeepers, Prince Paris falls in love with the King's wife, Helen, and brings her back to Troy. This of course pisses off the King to no end, and with his brother, they launch a massive attack on Troy. But they know the only way they can win is to have the mighty Achilles on their side, and Achilles doesn't like Agamemnon. Achilles does join the fight and has a few showdowns with his equal, Prince Hector of Troy. The battles are massive and Troy looks to be on the winning end. But with the help of the famous Trojan horse, things are not quite what they appear to be.

The one thing I noticed from the film is that the writing was actually decent. Normally when you see big budget action film set in ancient times, the dialogue becomes really cheesy and the audience starts to laugh in places they shouldn't. In Troy, I found that the dialogue was kept to a minimum and when people did speak, it wasn't anything too high brow. There were times when the audience would laugh at Orlando Bloom but that was mostly because of his reactions than anything else.

Pitt, Bana and Bloom were all in fine form as the girls sitting behind me could attest to. Any time any of them appeared on screen without a shirt on (or sometimes even less, which was quite often), then two of them would start giggling and exclaiming. Even as a straight male I have to give it up to Brad Pitt in the looks department. He may never be a great actor, but he can certainly coast by on his looks. The women of Troy were also attractive, but their roles weren't nearly all that big. Even Helen, the woman that started the entire war, didn't have a large role. In fact, the woman who had the most to do was probably the virgin Princess who falls for Achilles.

The look and feel of the film was very interesting. I didn't notice a whole lot of CGI effects as far as sets went. Obviously when you're trying to show thousands of warriors and thousands of ships, some of them are going to be computer generated, but it looked like all the sets had been built, which gave the movie a very authentic feel. I read the Iliad and Odyssey way back when I was in high school and for the life of me I have no memory of them at all, so I can't say how faithful this film adaptation was to the book. I did read the character who falls for Achilles in the book was a silent slave girl, and here she was elevated to Princess status, but otherwise I have no idea.

There were some moments that you couldn't help by laugh. There was one time when the two sides were in the middle of a huge battle, and one died (I won't give away who), and then they just decide that there won't be any more fighting. I didn't realize you could do that in the middle of a battle. Just decide that everyone's had enough and they want to go home? That was kind of funny. Also, at one point Orlando Bloom's Paris character is learning how to use a bow and arrow and all throughout the theater you could hear people mumbling 'Legolas!' I half expected him to sprout pointy ears and have his hair grow out.

So overall, I did enjoy Troy. I thought the acting was good, the look of the film was good, and the action sequences were entertaining. It was way too long and easily could have veen edited down by 15-20 minutes and kept all the important things, but the time passed quickly.