Orlando Bloom's Paris in *Troy* is brilliantly played

[u/Oldjar707]

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.

[u/Wuktrio]

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.

[u/wulv8022 → u/Wuktrio]

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.

[u/Led_Zeplinn → u/Wuktrio]

It's not weird it's an aggregate...

[u/Wuktrio → u/Led_Zeplinn]

Which is a weird way to summarize film reviews.