The legend of Achilles is one of the most well known tales in the history of the written word: whenever you hear or read the tale of Achilles, you just accept that it was the fatal arrow through the heel which caused his untimely end, no questions asked. However, when you've sat through two hours of Brad Pitt badassery, it's a lot more difficult to take his inevitable end. As the film draws to a climactic finish, Achilles is brought to his knees by an arrow through his heel, turning him into an easy target for several more arrows, and causing him to die of his injuries - though not before removing all but the first arrow. Whilst everyone can understand that being shot with an enormous amount of arrows is unhealthy for anyone, no matter just how godlike they may be on the battlefield, it is the fact that we have witnessed him come through the whole movie almost entirely unscathed by any of the gigantic challenges set before him that makes this particularly ludicrous. Furthermore, he's brought down by a man who has been little more than a coward throughout the film. While it's difficult to say what we should have expected from the death of a man who is infamous for being killed by a shot to the heel, the juxtaposition here is too comically varied. Though a nice piece of irony during the filming of the movie is that Pitt managed to tear his left achilles tendon, so I guess it's not that ridiculous after all.
