Troy

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

2004 / 163min / 35mm

Before The Odyssey there was The Illiad, and before Christopher Nolan’s sword-and-sandals smash there was Troy, Peterson’s rather free adaptation of Homer (with a smidge of Quintus Smyrnaeus’s Posthomerica for flavor.) Orlando Bloom’s Paris lures the lovely Helen (Dianne Kruger) away from her throne in Sparta to the city of Troy, and so launches a thousand ships from the Peloponnese hellbent on dragging her back, among those aboard the fabled warrior Achilles (Brad Pitt) and the cunning strategist Odysseus (Sean Bean), soon to test their mettle against Trojan champion Hector (Eric Bana) and his armies. A strapping slab of impassioned spectacle, opulent production design, and earnest romanticism which, though critically divisive on its initial release, has in recent months seen the ranks of its admirers swell.

Distributor: Warner Bros.