Reviewers are Douche-Nozzle Jackasses

That's long been my theory, and it's served me well over the years.

Now, I haven't seen Troy yet, and I don't particularly want to. I'm just not interested.

Still, that doesn't mean that dopey, talentless, brainless reviewers should have a free hand at criticizing the film for entirely ludicrous reasons.

Two Braincells presents an enjoyable panning of the critics' pans:

The film isn't called The Iliad for a reason, and that reason is that it's not a direct adaptation of The Iliad. Homer didn't originate the story of the Trojan war. He wrote the best-known versions of two parts of the saga in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but these are not the only source materials. The choice of Paris (i.e., the selection of the most beautiful among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and subsequent awarding of Helen) does not appear in the Iliad. Neither does the abduction of Helen. Neither does the Trojan horse. Neither do the deaths of Achilles, nor Paris, nor Agamemnon. Criticisms based on a supposed lack of fidelity to the Iliad would seem to miss the point in this regard.

I know nothing at all about the Iliad, but apparently I know more than critics. I wouldn't presume to comment upon the film's fidelity to the Iliad, having only read the Cliff's Notes in ninth grade. But that makes me smarter than reviewers, it seems.

This is good too:

For those further waxing wroth over the absence of the gods: you've got to be joking. Has it really been so long since Clash of the Titans that you're actually prepared to swear you'd treat the movie seriously if you'd seen Paris being wafted away in the middle of his fight with Menelaus on Aphrodite's cloud?

Note to self: Must begin making Clash of the Titans references.

And, if you've got a hankering to read through the Iliad with a snarky guide, Jamie R. provides a first-rate fisking to Homer.

posted by Ace at 05:31 PM

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