Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

stratofangr-70478 Iliad is an epic poem which it tells about the 10 year war between Achaeans (one of the four major ancient Greek tribes) and Troyans.It is full of battles between two big armies (55.000 Achaeans and 40.000 Trojans) but in the series it seems like two schools are in an argue. You feel like that the two armies has maximum 200 soldiers with no big battles. Apart from that there are many serious mistakes from the original poem.1) Iphegenia never sacrificed. The last moment goddess Artemis replaced her with a deer and took her as her priestess. 2) Achilleas fought hard to take Patroclus dead body. No one gave it to him. 3) Helen never betrayed the Trojans with the Trojan Horse 4) Ajax is descibed as "is described as of great stature, colossal frame and strongest of all the Achaeans" and not this short guy in the show 5) The tunnel that they were making in one week is between 2 cities with 500km distance

bellapeligrosa There's a lot of positive and bad reviews here, but ultimately I think this is worth a try. If you're a classical scholar or a fan of the Iliad, then potentially you might be disappointed - but it's not a retelling of the Iliad, which is also a work of fiction let's not forget, but another spin on the tale. Historically there's nothing to suggest Helen existed, let alone a Trojan horse or a 10 year war, so if you're expecting a faithful classical retelling don't even start watching, as many people have pointed out there's anachronisms galore. The hardest thing for me was the way it varied wildly in its delivery, something between a Starz-type T&A series to credible historical drama, and as such it never seemed to settle comfortably or confidently into something that was easy to watch. They could have done without the threesome, however I've got no issue with the casting (and if they hadn't cast black actors in some of the main roles they would have been accused of white-washing, it's a no-win situation). I thought it gained traction and the last few episodes were more enjoyable than the first. I would have liked a little more involvement from the Gods as they seemed to start with a supernatural spin yet not really develop it. For me, personally, it was lovely to see the South African backdrops being used so beautifully as well as a lot of South African acting talent.

Trevor Johns The Gods, at play with we mortals, enjoy displaying their strength and power over us. So it came to pass, as they say in the Classics, that the actors in this classic somehow offended the Gods. And this led to them being cursed. However they were not cursed with being bad actors, as tempting as it is to proffer this. No, being Greek Gods, they cursed the actors with leaving them exactly as they are. Mere mortal human beings with absolutely no charisma whatsoever. That is a heck of an effective curse.A scan of the characters, Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, Hector, Helen reveals those whose names are the essence of legend and thereby charisma.No actor here is a bad actor, but there was not one great artiste of high art among them. And the Iliad is greatness, and therefore requires, greatness to be brought to it.Perhaps it was as simple a matter as the present BBC's financial masters restricted them to hiring actors who would save them a few bob in the long run. Maybe it was that bargain basement ratings were brought about by hiring bargain basement actors. Who knows. Well, actually the Gods know, because it was they who cursed this lackluster telling of one of the world's greatest classic stories. Cursed it to be ordinary, when it needed to be extraordinary.

thestoddard76 Well...you're all probably correct. i probably should think this a letdown in a line of BBC greats. hear me out. i'll admit that the bar for Sword & Sandal epics have wondered horribly low. i'll admit that maybe i've come to feel like loving mythology and wanting to see it come to life on the screen is akin to hoping the next Highlander movie will be the one that really will be amazing. so i do get it. the show has flaws; from the wooden acting, to the pacing, to the "all ancients need to speak with a British accent - again" and of course the horrible changes to some of the myths. this last one gets me the most. i mean i come to these movies just for that reason. but alas, i have come to accept that a portion of my suffering life involves watching movies ruin mythology. that being said, i'm gonna go against the tide and say i did like some of this. i enjoyed seeing the choices made for this retelling. everyone is mentioning how distracting the actor selection is. i agree, just not for the same reason. i actually thought the interracial cast worked. David Gyasi as Achilles was waaaay better than Brad Pitt! i thought the selection for Achilles, Patriculus, and Zeus speaks more about the fluid nature of the diversity of skin tone in the ancient mediterranean. did Troy: Fall of a City represent every skin tone? no. far from it still. but it was better than all the cast being pale white Brits only, no offense to the Brits of course. what really distracted me about the casting choices is how everyone was chosen from a GQ magizine shoot. that was distracting! i also liked how they tied some of the myths together with new interpretive spins. Take for example Agamemnon's grief over Iphigenia becoming a motivation for his stealing Briseis, as well as other atrocities. that's fascinating. i thought it worked well. is it correct? probably not, but i don't watch movie versions of mythology to get Classics Scholarship. it was enjoyable in spots is all i'm saying. i enjoyed it. despite its flaws. i can totally see future graduate students of Classics Departments watching this and creating drinking games out of it, all the while loving to hate it and hating to love it. i went to see myth come to life, and i wanted to be entertained like the Greek ancients of old. there's something here that works is all, and at least when they fail, they fail epically.