The "Joey Tribbiani" school of acting

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2004)

Just saw Troy. I was advised that I would enjoy it and, for the most part, I did. I thought the costuming was fantastic, the fight scenes were terrific, especially the Achilles/Hector dual, and some of the acting... namely Peter O'Toole, Eric Bana and Brian Cox... was superb. Unfortunately, the movie's "star" Brad Pitt left a hell of a lot to be desired. Don't get me wrong. I am a great admirer of Mr. Pitt and find him to be one of Hollywood's most underrated performers. His work in movies like Se7en and Fight Club was phenomenal. However, in Troy he looked like he had been to the "Joey Tribbiani School of Acting" as seen in an episode of "Friends". Joey explains how he gets his facial expressions, and a couple that he explain are the "can you smell a fart" and "trying to divide 13 into 597" (or something like that). Basically Brad's facial expressions looked like a really bad American soap opera actor.
Also, some of the dialogue was bad to the point of banal. You really wonder how they came up with this drivel. I've read the Iliad and the Odyssey and I don't remember the dialogue being that awful.
What is truly a shame is that there were parts of the film that showed that Wolfgang Peterson was on the right tracks. Then some threw a switch and derailed it. What a shame.
Still, I guess that Joey Tribbiani will be happy that Brad not only graduated from his class, but is putting it to multi-million dollar use!