By no means bad...but flawed

Rating: 8/10 (7 July 2004)

I know Troy has already received a slew of bad-to-mediocre reviews by the press here in the UK but, for me; I found it hard to truly dislike this film. That's not to say that it's not carrying its fair share of flaws.
Granted that Wolfgang Petersen has done some terrific work in the past and is an accomplished director and Troy is no exception. True: perhaps more time should have been spent making the film as historically accurate and authentic as possible to Homer's text. Surely a few historians/classicists wouldn't have gone amiss, either. Yet, to get a film as close to the sheer scale and majesty of Homer's work is surely a near-impossible task; surely no 3-hour spectacle could truly achieve this?! In that respect, I wasn't too agitated that some details were ignored and others were just poetic license. Maybe more attention could have been paid to The Gods' whom play such an integral role in the ancient poem. It would seem that Petersen was happy with what had been re-written and then set about his work.
The acting is a mixed affair, ranging from great - Peter O' Toole, Brian Cox and Eric Bana; to satisfactory  Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean (who looks like he wasn't going to burst out laughing while delivering some of his lines!). Bean, I also feel could have maybe disguised his northern accent a little bit more, as could Brian Cox! Some of the lines that these guys had to deliver ranged from heartfelt to pure, unadulterated cheese which, in turn, leads to some heavy bouts of over-acting; not so good.
The battles scenes are superb and well paced. Of course, the obligatory links with LoTR have now been drawn but to see ancient battles on such a large scalewith spears, shields, bows and some impressive swordplay is a great visual experience. I was very impressed with the duel between Hector (Bana) and Achilles (Pitt). It's not overly gory but there's enough action to keep most people on their toes. The score is appropriate but not as strong as it could have been.
Overall I'd say that the film is well-paced given its length and rightly deserves a place in the annals of the great motion picture epics'. There's no ambiguity contained in the story but it did get a little boring constantly hearing about how heroes' took part in the Trojan War simply to gain their name and reputation in history; Achilles being the epitome of this and Petersen never seems to tire when alluding to this notion. Perhaps Troy is just a little bit more slow-burning that some other epic classics'. 7/10