La Guerre de Troie

I usually begin my reviews with a brief description of how the movie starts out. However, since this is about the Trojan War, beginning with the deaths of Hector & Patroclus, through to the Trojan Horse - you might be able to guess that from the titles in Italian and English - I'm going to suggest that you might read the ILIAD. There are some nice translations available.

Anyway, it's a pretty good Swords-and-Sandala flick, starring the inevitable Steve areeves as Aeneas, the pretty Juliette Mayniel as Helen and the unable-get-work John Drew Barrymore as Ulysses. Barrymore, the son of the better known John Barrymore, seems to have been a difficult man to work with, when he wasn't in jail for drugs or living in the desert.

Mostly one looks at these movies for the costuming, the sets and the homoerotic content, and they're all well represented here. I'd like to comment on the acting here, but there's always a big disconnect in the Italian peplum flicks, since they were shot in Italian, and later had voice-over artists loop their dialogue for the American releases. The English voice work is pretty good.