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34
10,000 B.C.
55
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62
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36
College Road Trip
xx
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31
Deception
41
Drillbit Taylor
57
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67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
54
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49
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34
Happening, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
xx
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71
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61
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65
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79
Iron Man
35
Jumper
73
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24
Love Guru, The
37
Made of Honor
xx
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58
Mist, The
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
55
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22
Postal
69
Redbelt
44
Ruins, The
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
76
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37
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37
Speed Racer
61
Stop Loss
47
Strangers, The
55
Street Kings
33
Superhero Movie
93
WALL-E
64
Wanted
36
What Happens in Vegas...
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
93
WALL-E
79
Iron Man
76
Shine a Light
73
Kung Fu Panda
71
Horton Hears a Who!
69
Redbelt
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Wanted
62
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
61
Stop Loss
61
Incredible Hulk, The
58
Mist, The
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
57
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
55
Street Kings
55
Nim's Island
55
Baby Mama
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
49
Hancock
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Strangers, The
44
Ruins, The
41
Drillbit Taylor
37
Made of Honor
37
Shutter
37
Speed Racer
36
College Road Trip
36
What Happens in Vegas...
35
Jumper
34
Happening, The
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
31
Deception
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
xx
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
xx
Dark Knight, The
xx
Mamma Mia!
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

83
Alexandra
80
Band's Visit, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
47
Bella
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59
Blind Mountain
55
Bra Boys
60
Brick Lane
70
Caramel
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
78
Counterfeiters, The
52
Diminished Capacity
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
84
Edge of Heaven, The
52
Elsa & Fred
79
Encounters at the End of the World
62
Expired
64
Fall, The
51
Finding Amanda
57
Flawless
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
60
Fugitive Pieces
45
Full Grown Men
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69
Go-Getter, The
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68
Heartbeat Detector
34
Holding Trevor
68
Honeydripper
55
Irina Palm
69
Jellyfish
60
Jihad for Love, A
68
Kabluey
62
Kiss the Bride
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82
Last Mistress, The
38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
70
Love Songs
64
Married Life
30
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33
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53
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74
Mongol
52
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52
My Blueberry Nights
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
84
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61
On the Rumba River
69
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61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
Paranoid Park
72
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51
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55
Quid Pro Quo
29
Red Roses and Petrol
79
Reprise
71
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56
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51
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76
Shotgun Stories
66
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70
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62
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72
Surfwise
81
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56
Then She Found Me
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71
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54
Tracey Fragments, The
70
Trumbo
72
Tuya's Marriage
83
U2 3D
56
Unknown Woman
86
Up the Yangtze
79
Visitor, The
62
Wackness, The
37
War, Inc.
64
Water Lilies
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
55
Without the King
72
Woman on the Beach
64
XXY
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75
Young@Heart
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
84
My Winnipeg
84
Edge of Heaven, The
83
Chop Shop
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Chris & Don. A Love Story
82
Last Mistress, The
81
Tell No One
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Reprise
79
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Beauty in Trouble
76
Shotgun Stories
75
Young@Heart
74
Mongol
74
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Woman on the Beach
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Surfwise
71
To the Limit
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Roman de gare
70
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Trumbo
70
Love Songs
70
Caramel
69
Go-Getter, The
69
Operation Filmmaker
69
Jellyfish
68
Kabluey
68
Heartbeat Detector
68
Honeydripper
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
66
Son of Rambow
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Married Life
64
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
64
XXY
64
Water Lilies
64
Fall, The
63
Foot Fist Way, The
63
Gunnin for that #1 Spot
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Stuck
62
Expired
62
Wackness, The
62
Kiss the Bride
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
On the Rumba River
60
Fugitive Pieces
60
Brick Lane
60
Jihad for Love, A
59
Blind Mountain
57
Flawless
56
Unknown Woman
56
Then She Found Me
56
Sangre de mi sangre
55
Quid Pro Quo
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
55
Irina Palm
55
Bra Boys
55
Without the King
54
Tracey Fragments, The
53
Mister Lonely
52
Diminished Capacity
52
Elsa & Fred
52
Mother of Tears, The
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Finding Amanda
51
Promotion, The
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Bella
45
Full Grown Men
38
Life Before Her Eyes, The
37
War, Inc.
34
Holding Trevor
33
Miss Conception
30
Meet Bill
29
Red Roses and Petrol
xx
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Troy
Warner Bros.
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for graphic violence and some sexuality/nudity
Starring
Brad Pitt,
Eric Bana,
Orlando Bloom,
Diane Kruger,
Peter O'Toole,
Sean Bean,
Saffron Burrows,
and
Julie Christie
Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor -- and some for love. (Warner Bros.)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Adventure
|
Drama
|
War
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
David Benioff
Homer (poem The Illiad)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Wolfgang Petersen
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: January 4, 2005
Theatrical: May 14, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
163 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
In a league with Hollywood's top historical epics, ancient or otherwise. It's stunningly handsome film, with an equally stunning cast and engrossing story.

91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
An exhilarating piece of epic filmmaking that it pulls you in, sweeps you up and works very much as its own thing.

80
Time
Richard Corliss
In this vigorous, stalwart epic, they blend martial breadth and emotional intimacy, honor and obsession, romance and machismo to show the glamour and folly of war.

80
Newsweek
Jeff Giles
Troy is a fun, energizing piece of summer entertainment, even if it doesn't have the depth or the sustained intensity of "Gladiator."

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Troy lacks the focus of Gladiator, not to mention that Oscar winner's scrappy wit. But why kick a gift horse when you're in summer-movie heaven?

75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Entertainingly epic eye candy.

75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
In sum, this is hardly an "Iliad" adaptation for the ages. But if you're hankering for sand, sandals, and swordplay, this could be the movie for you.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
When the film focuses on the Trojans, it's splendid. But when Troy attempts to sort out the competing agendas of the Greeks, it drags.

75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
A "Ben-Hur"-size epic with beefcake, beauty, outsize heroes, flashy duels and epic battles. There are breathtaking vistas, taut political intrigues, dangerous romantic liaisons and one of the greatest wardrobes ever assembled for a costume drama.

75
Premiere
Sara Brady
Wolfgang Petersen's Troy recalls an age when Hollywood not only gambled on but flourished with grandiose epics and casts of thousands, and brings megawatt star power to what is, at root, a brilliantly told story.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
All Hollywood and no Homer, but within its limits, it's a vigorous, entertaining movie.

70
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Far from great, but much farther from awful, Troy offers several popcorn buckets' worth of good old-fashioned time at the movies.

70
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
When a spectacular film rests on at least a minimal armature of character and cogent action, as Troy does, we can just sink back and enjoy. What we enjoy is the sovereignty over time and place and the force of gravity that film has given to the world.

70
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
That's the only way to enjoy Wolfgang Petersen's nearly three-hour epic: as a Pitt vehicle. In a role that requires larger-than-life dimensions, he's pretty terrific.

70
The New Yorker
David Denby
The movie is successful -- harsh, serious, and both exhilarating and tragic, the right tonal combination for Homer. [17 May 2004, p. 107]
63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
For a movie whose characters are so preoccupied with immortality, Troy is curiously forgettable.

63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
This handsome and occasionally exciting movie flounders because it confuses Tinseltown glamour with legendary heroism and beauty.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
There are times when Troy is stirring and engaging. However, at least as often, it is flat.

60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
It has plenty of visual sweep, fine action sequences, and, thanks especially to Brad Pitt (as Achilles) and Peter O'Toole (as King Priam), a deeper sense of character than one might expect from a sword-and-sandal epic.

60
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Isnt a bad film, simply an unspectacular one, which might be a more damaging statement.

60
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
Homer would be hard-pressed to find any remaining shred of "The Iliad" in this over-the-top entertainment. It has a lot of loud passion but not much poetry, and that's appropriate for a movie that could well be subtitled My Big Fat Greek Bloodletting.

60
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Except for a few brilliant flashes, mostly from Peter O'Toole as Hectors father, the Trojans' magisterially woebegone King Priam, Troy is a fairly routine action picture with an advanced case of grandeuritis.

60
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Despite a sensationally attractive cast and an array of well-staged combat scenes presented on a vast scale, Wolfgang Petersen's highly telescoped rendition of the Trojan War lurches ahead in fits and starts for much of its hefty running time, to OK effect.

60
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
For what it is -- a big, expensive, occasionally campy action movie full of well-known actors speaking in well-rounded accents -- Troy is not bad. It has the blocky, earnest integrity of a classic comic book, and it labors to respect the strangeness and grandeur of its classical sources.

60
Empire
Will Lawrence
Bruising battles and some stirring performances make Troy enjoyable, if rather long. But if audiences can forgive the camp, they'll still struggle to empathise with the characters.

58
Portland Oregonian
Karen Karbo
In the end, the battle scenes are elegant and compelling and there are some fine moments when O'Toole, as Priam, summons his inner Lawrence of Arabia and makes us believe that we're actually watching a tragic altercation that brought down great men descended from gods.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie cliches and demonstrates that we're getting tired of computer-generated armies.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
At its intermittent best, Troy suggests a primitive pro-wrestling smackdown with epochal consequences. At its worst, it's a throwback to the ham-fisted sword-and-sandal international coproductions of the early 1960s: "The 300 Spartans" with better sets. Barely.

50
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Given everything, it's no surprise that the verdict on the film has to be a split decision. Troy is a movie you believe in physically...Believing in Troy emotionally, however, presents a greater challenge.

50
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
What do you get if you start with the first great narrative of Western civilization, then remove all the psychological complexity and profound characterization? Troy.

50
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
Hardly gay camp for nothing, sword-and-sandal epics cannot help but teeter on the brink of self-mockery, and Troy, for all its grim seriousness, embraces both the clichés and the beefcake.

50
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The result is a pageant long but not deep, noisy but not stirring, expensive but not sumptuous.

50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Even the dramatic heavy hitters, who include Cox, Gleeson, O'Toole and Julie Christie, as Achilles' mother, are powerless in the face of Pitt's yawning hollowness.

50
Slate
David Edelstein
Often plays like what it is: a clunky toga-and-sandals picture, with Hollywood compromises abounding.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
A protracted and uninvolving affair in which men battle over issues that audiences may struggle to find compelling, and no central figure emerges to take command of the film.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
All costume and scant drama, the result is a curiously flat spectacle, neither offensive nor compelling.

50
Film Threat
Rick Kisonak
Wolfgang Petersen's popcorn epic doesn't fail exactly. It just takes on too much. Modern man is at something of a disadvantage-even aided by his trusty muse, the computer-when presuming to bring the stuff of gods, myths and timeless sacred texts to the big screen.

40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Petersen, a director who knows his way around a crane shot better than almost anyone, rallies his troops but can't ignite his actors, and the end result is the sound and fury of Homer undone.

40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Troy isn't so much a simplified retelling of "The Iliad" as a re-imagined version of it, told wholly without imagination.

38
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
What really wrecks Wolfgang Petersen's Troy is some of the worst casting in recent Hollywood history: The lackluster ensemble hired by the director is overwhelmed by the generally impressive sets and crowd scenes, by the task of playing epic heroes and by David Benioff's rambling, tone-deaf screenplay "inspired by Homer's 'Iliad.'"

30
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
In Troy, and in overreaching, underachieving productions like it, digital imagery is fast becoming both a Trojan horse and Achilles' heel.
30
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Troy does look good--so good, in fact, that it takes a while to reveal itself as a thundering dud with much action but little personality, human drama, or brains.

30
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
The thunderous clashes between armies of computer-generated Trojans and Mycenaeans, when they do arrive, feel decidedly un-epic, as though we were watching a child's toy-box war between plastic figurines. Which makes them perfectly in line with the rest of Petersen's artless approach.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 157 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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