Last Friday I went to see Troy. Well, what can I say? I already knew it wasn't going to be like The Iliad, having read news stories from Cannes prior to going. And while on some levels it worked, I was left frustrated.

OK, the spirit of the story is still there - Paris and Helen run away, upsetting Menelaus and causing war between the Trojans and Greeks. But as I already knew, the gods have been written out, so what we're left with is a secular version of Homer's epic. And it's not hard to see on whose side the film makers feel they belong. Throughout Hector's secular skepticism is contrasted with the religious faith of Priam's priests - and continually the old Trojan plumps for his advisors over his son, with disastrous results.

Brad Pitt makes a rather dull Achilles, trying to give him gravitas and moodiness. But what really doesn't work is the way they try to change his character half way through. Achilles is personified belligerence, but the film makers in their wisdom decided to introduce a love interest (a woman!) who encourages Achilles to reconsider his life. And I won't spoil the ending other than to say he begins to go soft. I suppose they though that with Brad Pitt they had to make a play for the women in the audience...

Having given Achilles a female love interest, it's rather hard to take his anger with Hector too much to heart when Patroclus is killed. In The Iliad you get the sense that Patroclus is more than a friend to Achilles, which brings out his rage outside the city walls. And it's exacerbated by the fact that Achilles knows he is responsible for his death, having sent him into battle wearing his armour. But in Troy Patroclus is a rather callow youth, rather peripheral and undeveloped. And he comes up with the wheeze of wearing Achilles's gear without his knowledge.

Being Hollywood, the signposts in this film couldn't be more obvious. Agamemnon is your archetypal baddie - wearing a capital 'B' over his head couldn't have made it more apparent. Eric Bana's Hector couldn't be more noble if he tried - but this isn't his best film, especially not having seen him play a fantastic psychopath in Chopper, which set him on his way.

All in all it was OK and if it encourages a new generation to find out more about ancient Greece, then that's all to the good. But the complexity of the original, the realisation that war is about honour and glory, but hard toil and desolation, is lost. As it was suggested to me yesterday, "They didn't know what they wanted to do with the film. Whether it was a Lord of the Rings-type spectacular or another Gladiator."

And because they didn't know, it falls between two stools.