Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!

Here’s a note to all of you who haven’t seen Troy and are uncertain if you should. There’s a lot of nudity. And almost all of it is from the three male leads. Plunging hip lines to show the boys had their weekly waxing. Ass shots, bare sweaty chests, and lots of the kind of “forced sex” we see in romance novels. The playful kind of “You know you want it” which is quickly followed up with a “Yes, I do,” all with the heartfelt understanding that if the latter didn’t follow the former, the boys would be too gallant to follow through with the threat.

Yes, ladies, there is a lot of Orlando Bloom/Brad Pitt/Eric Bana nude shots in this one. Get in line now.

Props to Orlando Bloom for playing a character that wasn’t particularly heroic or noble. Good for him.

Props to Brad Pitt for playing a very modern Achilles. Yes, the Achilles in The Illiad is a two-dimensional killing machine who is concerned with nothing but his own glory. And people are actually complaining that the script tried turning this cardboard cut out caricature into a real honest to Zeus character. Sometimes, script and actor succeed; sometimes they fail. A for effort.

You mean that wasn’t Kiera Knightly? Could have fooled me.

Hey — what’s King Arthur doing in this movie?!?!*

It’s obvious the folks at least read the Cliff’s Notes. The right people killed the right people, they hammered home a lot of Greek sentiments (the kind that make the Trojan horse believable rather than simply silly), and it all sets up the horror of someone getting drug around the walls of Troy. Good for them.

The battles were fun. The Hector/Achilles duel was great. Oh! Hector! Damn, I’m glad about that. There was a very real chance of making him some kind of action movie brute antagonist. No. They got it right. Good on them.

These Greeks sure do love their women. A bit too much, I think. But, I’m probably expecting a bit much for Hollywood blockbuster.

I enjoyed it. Probably see it again with my dad. I didn’t expect much going in, so I set myself up for a pleasant surprise. I got one.

* A No-Prize for the first person who can tell me where he’s hiding.