I DOUBT there has ever been a more spectacular folly than Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, a hugely entertaining and utterly preposterous tilt at Homer’s mythical siege. David Benioff’s script plays fast and loose with Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, squashing ten years of war into three hours. Has there been a more expensive quest for immortality? A cool $200 million was pumped into Petersen’s epic to salvage an improbable victory of spectacle over substance. Computer-generated extras charge up and down the beach in front of Troy, bashing seven bells out of each other. They break off when the sun goes down to slate the gods and argue over girls.

The film, released in Britain today, is dominated by Brad Pitt’s sulky and mesmeric Achilles, a Greek champion who is forever taking his kit off to wash the blood from his beefy torso. He seems to have styled his performance on Russell Crowe’s gladiator: a world-weary, almost deadpan delivery punctuated by bouts of heroic ultraviolence. Pitt fights like a ballet dancer and strikes fear (and indeed lust) in the hearts of Trojan women. His neat little eight-foot leaps to plunge his sword into people’s necks are captured in slow motion, and the soldiers love him for it.

The main point of conflict is not the defining duel with Eric Bana’s Trojan prince, Hector, but his petulant, vain squabbles with a wonderfully psychotic Agamemnon. Brian Cox’s camp and slimy Greek king steals entire reels of the film with fits of temper and treachery. He abducts a Trojan maiden, Briseis, from Achilles’ tent and sets in motion the titanic clash of egos that threatens the entire Greek enterprise. This being wholesome Hollywood, it is Achilles’ love for Rose Byrne’s tousled Briseis rather than his gay love for Patroclus (amended here to mere cousin) that needles our hero into action.

Cleverly, it’s the subjugation of Troy, rather than the winning back of Helen, that powers the siege. Diane Kruger’s lacklustre siren looks more likely to launch a line of cosmetics than a thousand ships. Orlando Bloom’s wife-stealing Paris is hugely disappointing. He might look more beautiful than Helen but he has the charisma of a slug. Peter O’Toole’s venerable Priam, King of Troy, rules the city like a senile matron. Only Eric Bana’s surprisingly humane Hector brings the requisite amount of steely grit to the Trojan line-up. It’s desperately one-sided, of course.

Both Greeks and Romans sport vintage 1970s football hairstyles, and strike poses that would embarrass bodybuilders. But with Sean Bean’s wily Odysseus and Brendan Gleeson’s dyspeptic Menelaus on their team, the Greeks are never in danger of losing our interest.

Petersen’s interesting point is that there is nothing heroic about the war itself. The close fighting is barbarous. Victories and crushing defeats hang on simple blunders and awful decisions. Glory is forever soured by how it is won. The set pieces are technical marvels, notably the Trojan Horse itself. It’s a monstrous thing, hammered together out of ship planks, and painted a menacing black. Why anyone would bother hauling it home beats me.

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