"The wrath in Rakesh Kumar, oh muse, help me sing"

This is the opening of Iliad, except 'Achilles' is replaced with my name.

Troy is a piece of dried dog shit wrapped in an aluminum foil.

Ah, that was cruel. Let me rephrase that: Troy is an expensive piece of dried dog shit wrapped in an expensive aluminum foil.

That does it. I have angered many movie fans, and I am willing to confront you all. I sat through the whole movie in extreme anger, so much so that it makes Pit's hot-tempered Achilles a saint. I had the body levitating experience which I had when I watched the Matrix sequels. It was back. It struggled hard to leave the theatre, but I endured. How come? I don't know.

Oh lord of the moviedom, what wrath have I caused? Wbat wrong have I done to deserve this punishment? Did you hear me, when I silently prayed a quick, clean death rather than to endure this piece of torture?

Sorry, that was my dialogue with the movie god. Oh hell, was it William Goldman who said, "you can make a bad movie out of a good script, but you can't make a good movie out of a bad script." He was right you know. This movie stinks, stinks and stinks.

Maybe I got emotional there. I will draw out some of the finer points. Yes, the war scenes were good, but it gets tedious at times. And worse, confusing. The fights involving Achilles were good, especially the one with Hector. There were some great aerial shots boasting some good CGI ships and men of battles. Peter O'Toole does some good scenery chewing as he is supposed to do, with his seniority. So does Bean, who could have been a much better as Archilles or Hector. He had the intensity that both Pitt and Bana lacks. Other than that, everyone else stinks. I am very much convinced that the younger actors in this film are going to disappear without trace. Bana seemed to be mimicking Russell Crowe, and Pitt was giving a shot at Brando-ism. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this movie is about real people in ancient times. Pshaw!

And do they have to pay homage to LOTR by having Bloom wield bow and arrow? Maybe halfway the shooting they realise that that is the only thing he is good at convenient, as the arching tuition fees were paid by the LOTR producers. Sheesh

What about Helen, played by Kruger? Well, one critic said that they should have hid her face strategically, so that we could ONLY imagine how beautiful it was, enough to launch a thousand ships. A local critic said that her face was not even good enough to launch a sampan (local fishing boat). As for me, she is fine, but doesn't she look like all the female co-stars in the movie?

I wonder what had happened to Peterson. He was brilliant in Das Boot. His work behind In The Line of Fire made us Eastwood fans rejoice. Air Force One was great action flick, and I can only surmount that he is damned good at filming thrillers. Epic is not his cup of tea. All he does here is spent the budget money brilliantly, and that's it.

There is two more sword and sandal epic in the making. Alexander by Oliver Stone, and Alexander the Great by Baz Luhrmann. Stone had worked on grand scaled movies, and I am very sure that he will not be kind to the legend. In fact, I am really looking forward to his treatment. As for Luhrmann, he did some movie on dancing. Hm...

After the debacle, I got back home, showered and watched El Cid (Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren) to purify myself. Anyway, I shan't continue with this comments. I had wasted enough time in the movie theatre.

And oh, women will love this movie. Trust me...