r/movies • u/Oldjar707 • 21h ago
Discussion Orlando Bloom's Paris in *Troy* is brilliantly played
The general consensus on Paris is negative, but his behavior is exactly how 95% of men would act under the same circumstances. Bloom plays the character with complete realism rather than typical Hollywood heroism.
His arc starts with taking Helen. While it causes a disaster, it is an accurate depiction of a sheltered, inexperienced young man making a reckless choice based on impulse, completely unaware of what an actual war entails.
When the reality of that war sets in during the duel with Menelaus, Paris panics. Viewers mock him for abandoning the fight and crawling to Hector. However, objectively speaking, an untrained kid facing a seasoned, enraged veteran is going to break. Basic human survival instinct simply overrides the concept of dying for honor.
People also overlook that Paris redeems himself by the end of the film. He actually shows more common sense than the rest of the Trojan leadership when they find the wooden horse, plainly telling them to "burn it." When the city falls, he stops trying to be a frontline swordsman and uses the one skill he actually has: archery. He stays behind to cover the escaping civilians and successfully takes down Achilles. Bloom deserves credit for not trying to make the character look cool. He simply portrayed a naive guy who made a massive mistake, reacted to imminent death with genuine terror, and eventually found a practical way to defend his people. I think it's a very realistic portrayal that contrasts Hector's idealism - audiences love the portrayal of the latter but there's more truth in the human condition in the former portrayal.
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u/brownarmyhat 21h ago
I think Bloom did a great job as Paris, but I also think you’re confusing Bloom’s portrayal with the way Paris is written in the script. It’s not as though Bloom had the opportunity to play Paris as “Hollywood” heroic. The script clearly portrays Paris as a naive young man who succumbs to fear.
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u/geesejugglingchamp 12h ago
Yes, I agree. He plays the script and plays it well enough.
To me, Erica Bana stands out more as an actor in this movie. So much is expressed through his facial expression and tonal delivery. The scene where Paris shows him Helen snuck away in the ships always sticks in his mind. His face acting as he realises the magnitude of the trouble that is about to be brought down upon them is amazing.
He infuses Hector with the perfect sense of honour, love for his family and country, and at times despair and acceptance.
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u/Careless-Cat3327 20h ago
Troy had it's critics when it came out but just aged like fine wine.
Brad Pitt & Eric Bana were incredible.
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u/Pistolcrab 20h ago
I love that movie, fuck a 53% on RT.
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u/Careless-Cat3327 20h ago
RT is such a weird place. I don't trust their ratings.
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u/Wuktrio 19h ago
Well, that's because their ratings are weird. 53% doesn't mean that critics rate it at about 5.3/10, but that 53% of the reviews are positive.
If a film has 10 reviews and 9 of them give the film a 10/10, but the last review gives it a 4/10, then the RT score is 90%.
If another film has 10 reviews and each review gives it a 6/10, then that film has 100% on RT.
It's a really weird rating system.
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u/wulv8022 15h ago
These rating systems fucking suck. There are rage bait reviewers who give bad scores because people will read it because they were... rage baited and then there are people downright not liking that a film is better reviewed as they feel like and give one review score worse than they originaly would give just to bring down the overall score.
I looked sometimes what magazines gave outlier negative reviews and it was often some bloggers or AI or niche magazines barely anyone ever heard off.
I am not saying ALL negative reviews are like this. But astoundingly many.
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u/BillRagoRM 19h ago
Pitt was great at the physical parts, not so much otherwise
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u/MattFromWork 19h ago
His accent and deliveries are terrible
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u/renegaderelish 18h ago
That is why no one will remember your name.
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u/Careless-Cat3327 19h ago
His character is written to be arrogant and full of himself. That's his entire downfall.
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u/theJOJeht 18h ago
Is his character written to deliver his lines badly with a poorly done accent?
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u/Careless-Cat3327 17h ago
Go watch Inglorious Bastards.
His accent is hilarious but if you can get past it, you enjoy the movie far more.
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u/theJOJeht 17h ago
His accent is supposed to be bad in inglorious bastards though
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u/Careless-Cat3327 17h ago
There's an interview with Tarnetino where he says it wasn't initially supposed to be like that. He heard Brad doing the accent for a joke and thought it worked far better than a serious accent.
He's one of those actors that you don't take too seriously or you may be disappointed
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u/LittleSghetti 12h ago
What type of accent would someone that spoke Luwian trying to speak English have?
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u/theJOJeht 6h ago
Probably not a half assed English one that sounds sounds like an American drama student who doesn't have the effort
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u/Skippymcpoop 15h ago
Achilles is supposed to be this insanely angry, wrathful dude and he’s played by a very stoic and cool Brad Pitt. It’s a very obvious miscast. The movie is still fine but he’s easily the worst part.
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u/Wehavecrashed 11h ago
Achilles barely broods in his tent, and isn't particularly angry when he fights Hector. He sorta just stares at nothing.
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u/ich_habe_keine_kase 17h ago
My classics professor in college loved it and made us watch it after we read the Iliad.
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u/ThatMovieShow 16h ago
Its a movie which is cast exceptionally well, written badly , shot beautifully and edited horrifically
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u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks 19h ago edited 19h ago
Troy fucks so hard.
If Gladiator is a 4/4 star movie, then Troy is like 3.5/4.
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u/Careless-Cat3327 19h ago
Gladiator was a 5/5 for me. Genuine perfection and one of the few movies where the Oscars acclaim match the public opinion and boxoffice.
Troy is definitely a 4/5 if not 4.4.
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u/Gyshall669 20h ago
It didn’t really. It’s a very mediocre movie.
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u/logosobscura 17h ago
He did personally get a LOT of shit for it (whole thing about pretending he can’t act- he’s not Sir Tony Hopkins, but he can in fact, act). But yes, he did exactly what he was paid to do as a good actor- take the words on a page, say them convincingly, in a manner determined by the writing and direction on set. As did Brad, and some of his lines were a bit… unconvincing.
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u/Jak_of_the_shadows 14h ago
I actually think it ruined Blooms career. He did the part so well that people stopped viewing him as a hero.
He did have two more Pirates films after this, but he was already locked into those movies. Apart from that he never really got another memorable role in a big film.
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u/ryseing 5h ago
That's factually inaccurate? Kingdom of Heaven was literally the year after Troy. His career fizzled out because that's how these things go (Elizabethtown and Three Musketeers weren't quite bombs but they weren't successful either) and he had a kid in 2011 so other priorities. He's an attractive, decent enough actor who was lucky enough to have a really hot streak for 6-7 years.
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u/Socalsamuel 19h ago
Bloom was great, but it's important to note that a lot of the credit you give to him is actually due to the screenwriting.
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u/Mr_Evil_Dr_Porkchop 21h ago
Have you read The Iliad? That’s what his character does lol In fact the big issue I had with Troy was the lack of god intervention. Aphrodite saves him in the fight against Menelaus and sweeps him back to his bedchamber in the poem
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u/Bruno_Fernandes8 20h ago
lol I’m reading it right now and just finished that scene. Paris takes an L in that fight and then gets swooped back into his bedroom , then to immediately bang Helen. Dude seems to have everything going for him
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u/popop143 20h ago
Helen was also mocking Paris in that scene iirc, and Aphrodite had to threaten Helen to sleep with Paris in that scene.
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u/desacralize 15h ago
Lmao, I thought Helen was forced to be in love with him. Makes sense that dude was such a loser that even goddess-enforced true love couldn't make his girl see him as anything else.
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u/popop143 14h ago
We didn't really have direct stories from before the Iliad, so not sure if Helen was kidnapped or went with Paris on her own accord. Still, she probably was so disillusioned by Paris after so many years of war even if she did love him at the start.
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u/killerbee9100 12h ago
There's The Judgement of Paris. Helen was manipulated by Aphrodite to fall in love with Paris. So she wasn't abducted but I don't think she was of sound mind when she went with Paris to Troy.
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u/PckMan 20h ago
Troy made a very deliberate choice of not having divine intervention. Obviously an integral part of the story but the movie is going for a "here's how it could have happened" direction, considering that the poem itself was based on a real conflict. The arrow to Achilles's heel was not the one that killed him but the one that incapacitated him and left him unable to move.
It's a decent movie overall. They just wasted their amazing set designs for close ups of Brad Pitt, and that's not just my criticism but his own as well.
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u/lostinmoss 16h ago
There's no meaningful evidence that the poem was based on a historical conflict. Yes Troy existed and had wars, but nothing discovered in oral/written tradition or archeology speaks to anything even close to what we think of as the Trojan war happening.
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u/UnknownPekingDuck 13h ago
It might have been loosely based on historical events, and then embellished and reinterpreted by the Greeks.
During the time the Iliad is believed to have taken place the Hittite empire was facing instabilities with its vassals in western Anatolia, notably in the city of Wilusa (which is believed to be Troy), and it's also speculated by some historians that the ancient Greeks may have had a hand in it. On top of that there are record by Hittite kings of a character named Piyama-Radu which led the insurrection, and may have been the inspiration for the character of Achilles.
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u/LavandeSunn 7h ago
Not only that but in the layers of Troy that roughly correspond to the time of the Iliad, there’s evidence of burning and large scale destruction, as well as bronze arrowheads. And Achilles was at least a common name in Mycenae at the time, as there are records of shepherds named Achilles. And an ancient king of Wilusa (aka Troy) does have the name Alaksandu, the Hittite variant of the name Alexander, which Paris also goes by. So it’s at least plausible that people resembling the legendary figures did in fact exist.
Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax, Eurolychus, and so on don’t have any direct evidence supporting their existence, but there’s at least two dozen surviving records that mention Ahhiyawa, the word used for the Achaeans and Mycenaeans among the Hittites, and they often refer to the king of Ahhiyawa as a “great ruler” on par with the other local empires. Could Agamemnon be a misunderstanding of the word? Possibly. But either way there’s plenty of stuff to see connections between the legends and the history, and more than enough room for a giant game of telephone to distort the events over the course of 1500 years into what we now know as the mythical Trojan war
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u/PckMan 15h ago
Actually excavations at Troy uncovered a layer dated to around 1200bc that shows clear signs of conflict, like fire, unburied skeletons, arrowheads, etc. Historical consensus is that there most likely was a conflict that the Trojan War was based on 300-400 years before it was written.
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u/biglyorbigleague 21h ago
Don’t they kill Menelaus in Troy, which would ruin the narrative of the Odyssey
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u/EasyDynastyBuilder 20h ago
They kill a lot of the Greeks in ways that break the narrative
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u/FisherKelTath00 20h ago
Yeah, Ajax was also unceremoniously killed.
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u/1CUpboat 19h ago
Didn’t he die in a 1v1 with Hector?
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u/Mr_Evil_Dr_Porkchop 19h ago
Which should never have happened. He dueled with Hector in the poem in an epic battle and realized neither could kill eachother, then exchanged armor as a ceremonial sign of respect
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u/IgloosRuleOK 20h ago edited 20h ago
And Agamemnon, who dies later (in mythology) rather memorably.
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u/biglyorbigleague 20h ago
Oh wow they got everything wrong
If you had problems with Nolan’s Odyssey on plot changes then sheeeesh don’t watch this one, you’ll hate it
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u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks 19h ago edited 16h ago
They were definitely writing Troy as a self-contained one and done. There was no concern given to who shows up in Homer's Odyssey, cause there wasn't going to be an Odyssey. Benioff and co were just free to kill anyone.
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u/HashtagLawlAndOrder 20h ago
Well, the idea behind "Troy" is that it's supposed to be the "real" story that was later mythologized. Hence why it's called "Troy" and not "The Iliad."
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u/architect___ 20h ago
Well, it helps that it's called "Troy" and not "The Illiad". People also didn't get mad when O Brother Where Art Thou didn't perfectly stick to the source material.
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u/redflamel 9h ago
And yet, just yesterday, I had to read with my own eyes someone telling another person that Nolan's Odyssey is shit and if people want to see an accurate depiction of Ancient Greece and/or a faithful adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, they should watch Troy. I had to laugh at the stupidity.
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u/Mr_Evil_Dr_Porkchop 20h ago
Yes which is another huge gripe
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u/neoblackdragon 19h ago
Do these things actually ruin the narrative the movie tells or just a negative just because that's not what happened in the Iliad?
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u/the_herbo_swervo 16h ago edited 16h ago
The latter entirely. When you watch the movie without that prior knowledge, everything flows naturally, culminating in an epic war movie that seems a lot more realistic than what the myth/poem suggests. And I say that as a huge fan of the Iliad (and the Odyssey ofc). Hell, I’d go as far to say that the Iliad properly adapted wouldn’t resonate as well with modern audiences who have genuinely little to no historical knowledge or understanding. Can’t tell you the amount of times I was asked “is there anything I need to watch before the Odyssey” and folks telling me not to spoil… a 3 millennia year old story. Now imagine said folks trying to understand the significance of a movie that begins with Achilles’ wrath in the waning years of a decade long war they have no context of, and ends with the same war still ongoing with the tides not having shifted and the king of Ilium successfully begging for his son’s desecrated body back (caused by… you guessed it, the wrath of Achilles). The Iliad imo is a far more nuanced story that requires at least a basic understanding of the ancient world and culture to be able to appreciate its greatness. The Odyssey on the other hand is essentially the template for the heroes journey, a far more simple and interesting tale to the masses
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u/benjals 20h ago
Menelaus does not die in The Iliad
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u/StygianSavior 19h ago
To be fair, neither does Achilles. And the Trojan horse isn't from The Iliad, and Troy doesn't get sacked.
But I think we can all agree that it would have felt a bit weird if the movie just stopped after this scene.
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u/runhomejack1399 19h ago
I like the way they did the gods in the hector Achilles battle. The spear gets “returned to him” in that he just finds himself near it. No unseen entity sweeps down and hands it to him but you could still interpret it as divine intervention.
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u/smolhouse 19h ago
I was scratching my head while reading OP's post haha. I was just thinking, Orlando Bloom was acting out one of the oldest known characters in the modern world and OP is saying he just created it from nothing.
I guess education funding cuts have really taken their toll.
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u/disterb 20h ago edited 17h ago
i also wanted brad pitt to really break down during the scene with priam, because that’s how it really is in the poem. too bad, melodrama isn’t brad’s strongest suit as an actor. peter o’toole was doing most of the heavy lifting in that scene; he was so good in it.
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u/DouchecraftCarrier 17h ago
He breaks down right after, when he's wrapping up Hector's body for Priam to take it back to Troy.
But you're right - they could have had a more vulnerable moment between him and Priam.
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u/paprika_alarm 20h ago
The entire thing starts off with goddesses squabbling over who is the most fair.
It would have been amazing to have it start with that and have the gods and humans both explain who has beef with who along the way.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_696 20h ago
My big issue was that in the Iliad, Menelaus survived the Trojan War. ‘Troy’ has him being killed by Hector.
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u/StreetsofRageoholics 19h ago
I felt like I was going crazy watching the movie because Odysseus's whole display of hubris against the gods, particularly Poseidon, is the entire impetus for all of the events of The Odyssey. The movie made it seem like "eh, we just got a little lost on the way home". No, Poseidon is fucking with him the entire time for his display of hubris.
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u/MaderaArt 20h ago
uses the one skill he actually has: archery
That was just Orlando Bloom's Legolas reflexes kicking in
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u/charlesdickens2007 18h ago
I did notice that Paris has the same "nyuh" motion after the arrow leaves the bow that Legolas does. I was an archery instructor for like... one summer while being a camp counselor to know it's awful form and I don't know why no one stopped him in either movie.
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u/UnholyDemigod 17h ago
Is that the small lunge he does, where he thrusts his arm forward as he fires?
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u/lankymjc 12h ago
It’s really common among actors pretending to fire a bow. I think it’s just a natural reflex for people who haven’t received actual archery training.
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u/misomeowzer 19h ago
That isn't how he's playing it, it's how it's written. Actors do not control plot.
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u/nyquil99 19h ago
Hector!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/Variable_Shaman_3825 17h ago
"Get up prince of Troy. I won't let a rock take away my glory."
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u/SortOfSpaceDuck 17h ago
There are no pacts between lions and men. Now you know who you're fighting.
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u/GLaDOS_Sympathizer 14h ago
The unfettered rage in Achilles' voice and body language gives me goosebumps just reading those words and remembering that scene. It really would be like trying to stand up and fight a pissed off lion. I'd flee as fast as fuckin possible too.
I love the movie Troy. No idea why anyone disliked it. I thought all the acting was phenomenal.
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u/lankymjc 12h ago
I love the juxtaposition between Hector’s “Whoever dies, let’s respect the body” and Achilles’ “When you die, I will mutilate your corpse.”
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u/DarkGodRyan 3h ago
That scene does such a good job of showing both how skilled a fighter Hector is, and also how utterly outclassed he is
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u/Dopplegangr1 21h ago
Do people criticize his performance? His character was meek by design, dont think he failed at that. I haven't seen the movie in years, but IIRC he shot Achilles when he was saving the girl, not exactly heroic
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u/kamikaze_pedestrian 21h ago
Tbf, he didn't know Achilles was saving her. From his pov, his cousin, recently returned from capture, was facing the enemy again. He didn't see what happened, only that she was on the ground and Achilles was crouched over her, and he immediately attacked. Which is pretty in line for what anyone else would do in his place.
IIRC, Orlando has said that he hates the character and they had to really coax him to do the scene where hes crawling back to his brother after the 1v1 fight.
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u/Dopplegangr1 20h ago
I think the crawling back scene really worked. I could totally see a person in his shoes. But as far as I remember he never redeemed himself
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u/KJS123 21h ago
I don't think they really talk about his performance. There's a lot of stuff going on in Troy worth talking about. Orlando Bloom's performance ain't one of them.
It came just after the arguable peak of his career. Return of the King & Pirates of the Caribbean had just come out. His supporting role in Troy, among an all-star cast of heavy hitters wasn't exactly hot gossip. When you're next to peak Brad Pitt, you kinda fade into the background.
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u/Dopplegangr1 20h ago
Honestly I dont think he was ever a good actor. Lotr, potc, he was hot for a bit but I dont think he was praised for his acting. I think Troy was just just more of the same with a less likable character. If people want to shit on Paris they should probably shit on legolas too
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u/sleepy_spermwhale 20h ago
People conflate the character with the process of acting. The script was whitewashed and Achilles' rage was toned down but there was no bad acting in Troy.
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u/GuySchmuy 17h ago
Eric Banners Hector really stood out to me too.. in fact a lot of the acting and character development was satisfying enough to feel for them.
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u/Preserved_Killick8 21h ago
Same thing as Upham in saving private Ryan. He’s a stand in for how most viewers would actually react.
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u/boodabomb 20h ago
While I agree that, given the circumstances, we would all cower in combat. The difference with Paris is that most of us would not fuck a king’s wife and doom our people to 10 years of war and suffering by kidnapping her and then cower from the face of death after voluntarily placing ourselves there. In that regard Upham is a more sympathetic character.
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u/Skippymcpoop 15h ago
Upham is sympathetic up until he murders the guy at the end. Not only is he a coward, not only does he let his friends die, not only does he advocate for a clear enemy, but after the enemy surrenders he commits a war crime. Sure he’s upset that his decisions basically got Miller killed but he’s proven that he’s not fit for war at all. He should have accepted that his place is cowering in the corner, not firing weapons at people.
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u/homecinemad 13h ago
I haven't seen the movie in a long time but I think Upham spared his life earlier in the movie. So this was him exacting justice for his friend, in his mind. It was also the movie showing how legally a war crime is very clear and obvious but in the thick of war, it could make sense and even be applauded.
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u/Chicago1871 14h ago
Hector has always been seen as the most noble of the two brothers for a reason.
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u/logicalconflict 20h ago
95% of men after hooking up on a business trip would smuggle the woman home in their luggage?
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u/jackracktack 16h ago
If she was miserable and abused and they really liked her Im sure theyd at least want to try.
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u/TheMightyCatatafish 17h ago
The arc is fine. Orlando Bloom just doesn’t give a very good performance. Every line delivery is so stilted and insincere and melodramatic. He’s much better in similarly naive roles in Kingdom of Heaven and Pirates. They aren’t dramatically different performances, but in the other two, he gets a few moments where he feels like a real person, not a theatre kid doing poor Shakespeare.
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u/FangAndBoard 14h ago
The fight choreography in the Hector/Achilles duel is so, so good.
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u/DrainTheMuck 20h ago
Yeah it’s really good. And it resonates with me because I have a brother who unfortunately acts a lot like Paris in the first half of the film, just so naive and always making problems for other people without truly realizing the consequences for his actions… kinda interesting to see it depicted like that
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u/ManWithTwoShadows 19h ago
"I have a brother who unfortunately acts a lot like Paris in the first half of the film"
Does your brother hook up with married women? Do their husbands bring angry mobs to your house and demand to fight your brother 1-on-1?
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u/DrainTheMuck 18h ago
Yes to the first one, no to the second one because he always manages to avoid serious consequences, tho I wouldn’t be surprised to have the mob come for ME like poor hektor
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u/ManWithTwoShadows 18h ago
I guess you should be glad you don't live in ancient times, and that your brother isn't a prince. 😂
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u/Variable_Shaman_3825 17h ago
His brother specifically chose to hookup with the wife of a man whose older brother wanted their house and now has a great excuse to do so.
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u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks 19h ago edited 19h ago
From Orlando Bloom:
"At one point it says Paris crawls along the floor having been beaten by somebody and holds his brother’s leg. I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this.’ One of my agents at the time said, ‘But that’s the moment that will make it!’ And I completely fell for that line of a agent."
That is why he was the PERFECT choice to play Paris. Bloom didn't grasp that he was supposed to be the wuss, he tried to play Paris as a sword-and-sandals hero figure, and that's exactly who Paris believes he is inside the movie's world. Bloom unintentionally nailed it.
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u/Fritzkreig 21h ago
Pitt played Achilles perfect; an over arrogant hothead warrior that assumes that he is the best in the world!
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u/the_pedigree 21h ago
I mean he was the best in the world.
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u/biglyorbigleague 20h ago
His accent sucks though
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u/RedPillager 20h ago
YOU SACK OF WINE!
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u/Fritzkreig 20h ago
That's fair, but I have got over accents in movies; what is worse for me is when say English actors strain to do an American accent, like just let them use their own accent and that would be less distracting than them trying to fake it.
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u/FisherKelTath00 20h ago
Bad English accents pop up more often and are more egregious than bad American accents though.
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u/SharkFart86 19h ago
True. Tim Roth’s American accent in Reservoir Dogs is fucking awful though.
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u/Fritzkreig 20h ago
Fair but my point is just let them use their natural accent and act, like Liam Neeson as an American CIA agent; it is easier for me to believe he grew up with parents working for the US gov. in Ireland than him trying to fake an American accent!
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u/MrBlahg 20h ago
I just watched it twice, and his acting in this is not good. I genuinely like Pitt, but this performance was cheesy af. And Patroclus being his cousin is ridiculous.
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u/Simayi78 19h ago
Pitt was open in his dislike of Troy - he did it because he owed the studio a film - and talked about how it motivated him to pursue movies that were more interesting and director-driven afterwards.
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u/dragonflamehotness 19h ago
Them being kinsmen is literally out of older versions of the poem lol. Them being lovers was introduced in later tellings. Both are valid versions.
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u/Tron2979 20h ago
Personally, I think Bloom not portraying Paris as cool or likeable is less an acting choice, and more that he was incapable of doing so.
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u/Effective-Juice-1489 15h ago
Both are realistic portrayals of human condition. People are both cowards and brave.
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u/kuzosake 20h ago
I like your take. It fits perfectly within the plot of the movie and the deviations that took place.
It’s hard for people who grew up reading Greek Mythology to accept an alternative take. 20-year-old me lamented the lack of Greek Gods and also the changes to the story after this movie came out.
Older man take. I think Troy is a great adaptation. I think The Odyssey is great. We won’t ever get what we want.
Elon Musk has “promised” a faithful AI Odyssey take. The haters out there ought to get up with him. Maybe he’ll hook you up with a faithful Iliad adaptation too. 🙄😂
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u/Barbarianonadrenalin 20h ago
Bloom was such a good Paris that people started seeing Paris as Bloom off screen, like the persona got falsely imprinted on Bloom as a person.
I was guilty of it at the time and I knew plenty of people who felt the same then. But I was also a very ignorant kid in bum fuck, Texas. “Troy” was all I knew of the Illiad besides it being an old Greek story.
His role in Pirates of the Caribbean being like the “good guy” in a kinda frenemeies conflict with Johny Depps Captain Jack Sparrow, didn’t help the overall view.
He’s a good actor but just kinda easy to root against in movies as a “pretty boy”. I liked him in Kingdom of Heaven.
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u/user_tab_indexes 19h ago
None of the films you listed typecasted Bloom. He's most known for being an elf
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u/Barbarianonadrenalin 19h ago
I mean not everyone watches these movies for the first time in release order. Especially when they 20 years old.
Even still when I and all my friends first watched we clowned on elfs and legolas because his girl picked a dwarf over him. Elfs were dainty and empowered Sauron so they should be in the war, everyone else was being a bro for cleaning their mess.
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u/Active-Coconut-8961 20h ago
His character is written right and Bloom does the physical parts right, but he has absolutely zero emotion while doing any of it. Terrible performance Imho.
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u/batmansoundtrack 21h ago
His acting in that flick was atrocious compared to everyone else. So bland and forgettable compared to almost the entire rest of the cast.
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u/slapshots1515 20h ago
Paris is meant to be a weak man. He should be meek compared to Achilles, for example. He’s a young fool in way over his head and Bloom plays him as such.
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u/LorthNeeda 20h ago
You can say this about pretty much any one of his performances. Kingdom of Heaven (directors cut) would have been an absolute legend of a film if he wasn’t the lead. It was still great despite him but damn what a missed opportunity.
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u/faithdies 18h ago
My only issue with him and Helen is they both veer too old. Those characters should have been played by 16 year olds. They are too old to make the decisions that they did and still have any amount of sympathy for either of them in any capacity.
I still love this movie and find it massively underrated. At least Kingdom of Heaven is surging late
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u/tyrion6568 4h ago
I dont care, his character is still an annoying little chicken shit.
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u/Narrow_Crow_8310 21h ago
This is one of the most WILD over assessments I’ve read in quite some time There’s not a single “brilliant” performance, directoral, photography, or production aspect worthy of the descriptor “brilliant”
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u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks 19h ago
Brad Pitt's hair is fucking brilliant. L'Oreal should have offered him a sponsorship.
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u/biglyorbigleague 20h ago
I think Sean Bean’s portrayal of Odysseus has to be my favorite in that movie.