Horsing Around With Troy

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2008)

Like the Trogan horse itself, this movie sort of sneaks into your psyche and helps you suspend your belief and enjoy. Oh, I feel for the outraged scholars out there who want a literal performance of the Iliad. But this is the 21st century and folks neither understand nor will tolerate the rather boring and incomprehensible devotion the ancients felt toward their deities. The film makers made the right choice and concentrated on human (sort of) characters, and human themes: love, war, grief, honor, cowardice, greed, etc.
The film is visually stunning. For those who say good CGI is now routine, please look at the messes of the new King Kong, and the totally idiotic remake of Godzilla. These battle scenes may be inaccurate in costume or tactic, but they are visually well done.
And then there is the acting. Well, Brad Pitt does a wonderful job playing THIS Achilles. The camera loves him and he has clearly worked very hard on conditioning and his movements. I thought him terrific, and I am not a big fan. The camera also loves Eric Bana; who dominates almost every scene he is in. Orlando Bloom is despicable as Paris, the seeming cause of all the trouble (although there are political shadings far beyond his silly abduction). Bloom is despicable in every role he is in, so the film makers cast well here. Kruger is quite the astonishing looking Helen, one does not notice if she acts. Peter O'Toole is the consummate professional as always, here in the role of the sympathetic yet ultimately foolish Priam. No one really does poorly in this picture.
So, folks, get a grip! It's a movie! If you want the whole schmeer, read the Iliad, take a course, join a study group. Here, with this version of Troy, you'll get your nine bucks worth of pure movie entertainment!