Achille Sword from Troy Legend

Troy is an epic film released on May 14, 2004, concerning the Trojan War. It is loosely based on Homer's Iliad, but includes material from Virgil's Aeneid and other sources, and frequently diverges from myth. The film has the following cast of actors prominent at the time of its release: Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Diane Kruger as Helen, Brian Cox as Agamemnon, Sean Bean as Odysseus, Rose Byrne as Briseis, Garrett Hedlund as Patroclus, Peter O'Toole as Priam, Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus, and Tyler Mane as Ajax. Troy was directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by David Benioff. It received an Oscar nomination for its costume design.

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme the Wrath of Achilles.

Achilles also has the attributes of being the most handsome of the heroes assembled against Troy, as well as the best.

Later legends state that Achillies was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. These legends state that Achilles was killed in battle by an arrow to the heel, and so an "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a person's principal weakness.

A lot of people are foggy enough about the battle of Troy's origins to confuse the story laid out in the "Iliad" with history. I'm sure you'll hear more than one movie-goer comment on the film's historical accuracy. Last night I heard at least two. But, like Hidalgo, The Passion, or maybe more like Harry Potter, Troy is another ambitious adaptation that only manages as solid entertainment.

The idea of taking Homer's battle poem and turning it into a movie is a good one, since it instantly leans towards the epic and contains plenty of notable and screen worthy characters. It's also a story strongly ingrained in our cultural consciousness, after centuries of required classroom reading. It has already received some comparison to Gladiator, but where that movie was a surely modern fighting flick, the story of Troy lends itself much more to Hollywood's golden age, the sort of thing that would have attracted a younger Chuck Heston.

Troy is not exactly a throwback to the golden age of epic Hollywood filmmaking, but it is influenced by it. Filled with dusty and grandiose set pieces, it spans kingdoms and seas in following primarily two tales: That of Achilles (Brad Pitt) and his quest for eternal glory and that of Hector's (Eric Bana) beleaguered, underappreciated defense of the land he loves. Both are dragged somewhat unwillingly into battle through the actions of others. For Hector, it is his irresponsible brother Paris (Orland Bloom) who brings down political trouble when he kidnaps the wife of King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), brother to Agamemnon (Brian Cox), King of all Greece. Menelaus isn't the best husband, but he takes the theft of his wife Helen somewhat personally. The vicious and somewhat cartoonish Agamemnon seizes his brother's rage as an opportunity to take the homeland of Princes Hector and Paris, an unconquerable kingdom across the sea named Troy.

While Hector's motivations are somewhat simple defense of family and country, Achilles' are much more complicated. He is already Greece's greatest warrior. A reluctant tool of king Agamemnon he is unbeatable. An often gray and amoral figure, Achilles hungers for more. He has grown weary of battle, but desires immortality. With the attack on Troy billed as the biggest battle in history, he can't resist another chance to get his name indelibly written in history books.

As Achilles, Brad Pitt is either naked or fighting. There's no in between. Achilles is a guy who only wears clothes when he's killing. I'm not sure what that says about his character. But don't worry guys, it isn't real Pitt nudity, just side-nudity. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen so much side-nudity in any film. I now know every intimate inch of Brad Pitt's naked profile. Troy lacks the courage to show full frontal or even a little bit of ass crack. Odd for any other R-rated movie, but not really for this one which only barelyshows enough carnage to warrant a rated R. It could easily have slipped by as PG-13 and one has to wonder why they bothered at all with an R when the removal of even a thimble-full of blood could have garnered them something lesser. If you're going to go R, make it worthwhile. Don't be afraid of women's breasts. Don't run away from realistic battle sequences. Hey, throw in a couple of decapitations! This is war, not West Side Story.

What the film's massive battle sequences sometimes lack in ugly realism is made only worse by Director Wolfgang Petersen's strange propensity to focus in on one on one battles to the exclusion of all else. A hundred-thousand men clash on the field of battle, yet everything falls silent as soldiers form a big school-yard huddle whenever Hector picks up his sword. Should he dispatch a particularly difficult foe, he mutters "that's enough" and all one-hundred thousand men just seem to wander home.

Maybe I've been permanently spoiled by Peter Jackson's groundbreaking siege in T