This ‘Helen of Troy’ is so tragically bad it’s good

Barbie and Ken of Troy.

Some of us would go just about anywhere for great trash, the kind of fat blimp that appears to take itself very seriously but lands with a big splat. Fortunately, we don’t have to go far.

See those sconces Helen and Paris lock eyes as she walks naked (we see her backside) among 100 kings.

See that little twirp Menelaus demolish burly Trojans twice his size.

See that skinhead brute Achilles spend an entire evening dragging a body in circles behind his speeding chariot -- maybe he should get a life -- as throngs cheer mindlessly.

Now this is a war.

The USA Network’s two-part “Helen of Troy” is about as bloody as television gets. And about as bloody bad. So ferociously inane is it, in fact, that it’s irresistible, its gory slaughter of battling Greeks and Trojans and fuzzy romance between Helen (perfectly formed daughter of Zeus) and Paris (handsome son of Trojan King Priam) entering a bizarro realm where flaws become attributes and usual definitions of good and bad no longer apply.

Getting there is tricky. Being bad is not good enough. Then it’s just bad. But being really, really bad is an art.

The Malta filming and pageantry are sweeping, Troy being “the richest city in the world -- silks from Asia, spices from Arabia, rare woods from Africa.” Think Cost Plus.

But if you’re a connoisseur who values corn, the gods are kind to you here. You know it’s going to be a self-important epic when the press kit is swanky, the principals have English accents and men, instead of guzzling Bud and belching, gather to eat grapes.

A theatrical “Helen of Troy” landed in 1955. And cameras are ready to roll on “Troy,” a Warner Bros. theatrical release directed by Wolfgang Petersen. But TV’s new Helen hits gurgling lows that will be hard to match, affirming that first-rate trash always trumps second-rate art.

It was Helen, you’ll recall, who triggered a fierce war between Greece and Troy just by looking great. In this account, written by Ronni Kern and directed by John Kent Harrison, the influential face belongs to former model Sienna Guillory. When she rides her horse in slow motion, she and everything else bounces, and before the first commercial break she’s reducing men to simpering lumps of testosterone.

Frankly, though, she was more fetching three years ago when sneaking up on you as an alluring newcomer in the BBC’s “A Girl Like You.” Here, she’s commanded by Greek legend to be “the most beautiful woman in the world,” a crushing burden, to say nothing of having a face credited with launching a thousand ships.

“Helen of Troy” approaches world-class TV trash. The best I ever saw, years ago, was a movie that had Christopher Columbus met on the shore by nubile dancing girls. And not far behind was NBC’s more recent miniseries “Noah’s Ark,” which tested the theory that Genesis was written by Henny Youngman. Then take “Helen of Troy.”

Please.

It strays from legend in spots, but who cares when something is such trashy fun? We meet Helen when she’s a headstrong nymphet in a filmy tunic, causing her Spartan stepparents great consternation. When her wispy older brother tells her, “Let’s get you bathed and dressed,” you know Kern’s script is tunneling into rich soil. Paris (Matthew Marsden), meanwhile, is up in the rocks herding goats, unaware that he is the son of Priam (John Rhys-Davies), who ordered him killed when he was a newborn because his snotty older sister, Cassandra, prophesized he would be the ruin of Troy.

Cassandra (Emilia Fox) resurfaces as an adult with still more pop, throwing a major snit when learning that Paris survived, and chewing up the furniture before she’s packed off and jailed for overacting.

Meanwhile, see Paris -- his combat skills somehow sharpened as a shepherd -- take out a string of tough gladiators in front of more cheering throngs, as even his brother, that great warrior Prince Hector (Daniel Lapaine), is no match for him when these two beautiful guys duke it out in their blousy garments.

When Helen and Paris’ paths eventually converge, they hit it off with all the heat of two people playing a duet on the lute. As lovers, Guillory and Marsden are, well, low-wattage, falling fabulously short of lighting up the screen. Trouble builds when Paris takes Helen from Sparta (actually she swims after his boat as he heads home), and her husband, King Menelaus (James Callis), is so humiliated that he sails with his army for Troy, an invasion that his ruthless brother, Agamemnon (Rufus Sewell), uses to his own advantage.

The siege of Troy and pursuit of Helen last a decade, during which no one ages, and when the men of Sparta frolic on the beach during down time, you half expect them to break out singing, “There is nothin’ like a dame!” Yet Agamemnon has a plan: The Greeks should pretend to depart, but build and leave outside the city walls something enormous that their army would hide in and then emerge and slaughter the Trojans once it was wheeled inside. But what would it be? A giant ... bug? Nah. A giant yak? And have a Trojan yak go down in history? No, not a yak. Instead, yes, yes, a horse. When it appears magically the next morning, that doofus Priam has it brought in, and the rest you know.

How are the Greeks able to build it unnoticed? Also, if Cassandra is such a colossal know-it-all, why doesn’t she foresee a hollow horse being a weapon of mass destruction? And why does Achilles, who someday would have a tendon named after him, look like Jesse Ventura?

The masterful scene to watch for, though, has the Greeks and Trojans locked in savage combat when suddenly both armies freeze, except for Menelaus, who walks forward among the motionless soldiers with his eyes on Helen, who is watching the carnage from atop Priam’s castle. Meant to convey Helen’s spellbinding power, this supremely comical out-of-body pause lasts about 30 seconds. Then everyone starts fighting again.

Great trash rocks.

*

‘Helen of Troy’

Where: USA Network

When: 8-10 p.m. Sunday; concludes 8-10 p.m. Monday, with multiple repeats

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

*

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.