Troy panned in Cannes

It is the biggest blockbuster of the year and its premiere at Cannes attracted every star in the Hollywood firmament.

But, sadly, it appears the conversion of Homer's "Iliad" into Brad Pitt's "Troy" has not found favour with the gods.

But then again director Wolfgang Petersen did start by dumping Zeus and the rest of the gods from the script.

The result is a panning from the critics which will do little to stop it becoming a box office success - Brad Pitt and £111million worth of Warner Brothers' money will take care of that. One British critic variously described this interpretation of the Trojan war as a "disgrace" and a "pathetic joke".

Another calls it "preposterous" and a third labels the male leads, including Brad Pitt's Achilles, "desperately dull". The source of most the criticism comes from the fact that Petersen and his script writer David Benioff have played fast and loose with one of the most enduring stories in history.

Even Benioff has said his 120-page script - cramming 10 years of siege into two hours and 40 minutes - has taken liberties. Petersen, director of Das Boot, took the gods out of the film entirely after convincing himself the audience would not be able to take them seriously enough.

Instead of being the greatest warrior of his age, Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph complains Pitt reduces his character to a "petulant prima donna" whose wrath "looks more like a migraine".

He continues: "It's a painfully misconceived performance: mumbled cold, alienating. He huffs and puffs, frowns and glowers, but never remotely inhabits the part."

Other critics have pointed out that Diane Kruger - playing the world's most beautiful woman in Helen - is nowhere near pretty enough to have ever launched 1,000 ships.

The Evening Standard's own review of the effort by Will Self described it as "the Iliad for agnostics" while Pitt "isn't a demigod, just a fabulously buff 40-year-old in a leather skirt".