Remember Gladiator? Sure you do. It got lots of attention a few years ago. Remember how it went? Long, historical drama with lots of special effects, questionable (sometimes laughable) dialogue, stunning & frenetic action sequences, liberties taken with the historical story/background and a stud action star who always seemed to be oiled down and flexing? Yes? Then nothing much’ll stun you about Troy.

Don’t ge me wrong: I liked it. But I think I liked the movie in spite of itself. Brad Pitt was good — or at least interesting — as Achilles. Eric Bana made a good Hector. Orlando Bloom was useless. I’m sure he attended the Keanu Reeves school of only-ever-have-one-expression acting.

The special effects and battle sequences were good, but hardly groundbreaking. But the real star of the movie was the story; as butchered as it might have been, The Iliad is so compelling a story that not even a leaden screenplay and disinterested performances of two of the critical chacters (Paris & Helen) could completely kill it.

I’m buying The Iliad and The Odyssey.