Diane Kruger: one-film wonder?
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But if Paris has had a rough ride from the critics, that's nothing compared with poor Helen (Diane Kruger). Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, thought she was "pretty enough in a Darien, Connecticut, kind of way — not exactly Helen of Troy, but maybe Helen of Abercrombie & Fitch (Think of her as the face that launched 1,000 golf carts)," while Phillip French of the London Observer thought she looked "more like a waitress than a princess, less a face that launched a thousand ships than a face that served a thousand lunches."
In Troy, Kruger is said to come across as comely and vacant – “the screen-epic equivalent of an anchor blond’’ writes Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun. He says for the story to work, Helen needs to be earthquakingly gorgeous, like Elizabeth Taylor in full bloom in the 1952 Ivanhoe, or Sophia Loren in The Gold of Naples (1954), Ursula Andress in Dr. No (1962) or Michelle Pfeiffer in “just about anything’’.
The one utter failure in this regard is Diane Kruger as Helen, marvelously lovely. They might as well have used a mannequin in the role. The only near risible moments in the film come when Petersen inserts, into the battle scenes of the war being fought over Helen, quick close-ups of her oh-so-troubled face.