All about the bling bling

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2004)

A possible minor spoiler or two.
Wolfgang Petersen's 'Troy' is to 'The Iliad' as Kubrick's 'The Shining' is to Stephen King's novel. If you can somehow dissociate the movie from the classic poem on which it is "based", 'Troy' is certainly not a bad outing, but three flights below "epic".
'Troy' was long, stilted, and infinitely more about the profit than the story. As a movie, you are treated to some solid A-list and B-list stars mixing it up ... a sure revenue draw to kick off the summer season. As an adaptation, if you are familiar with the legend, you will leave wanting, but entertained nonetheless.
Acting. Since this effort was all about the immortal glory of Oscar nods, let's start with this. Petersen's vision reduces 'The Illiad' to a battle of man vs. man. Mythical characters are rendered as exceptionally brave, cunning or ruthless humans that one might conceivably encounter in the present day.
'Troy' yields one of Brad Pitt's best performances as the nearly invulnerable Achilles. As a great warrior, he delivers, thanks, in no small part to his personal trainer. The contentious dynamics between Achilles and Agamemnon, and Achilles and Hector are well-played by all involved.
Eric Bana was a convincing Delta in 'Blackhawk Down', and here, portrays a compelling yet subdued Hector, the victim of his own palpable sense of honor.
Brian Cox's Agamemnon personifies the power-meets-greed archetype and does a convincing job. Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus deserved a bigger (or longer, at any rate) part. The great Peter O'Toole is the perfect benevolent uber-father, King Priam of Troy, though I couldn't help sharing Achilles' revulsion at perceived hints of creepiness.
And, so we come to Orlando Bloom as Paris, the younger brother of Hector and, no doubt, the most vilified, unsympathetic actor in this endeavor. In all honesty, he delivered a poor imitation of Peter Hanly's Edward, Prince of Wales in 'Braveheart'. In his defense, Bloom's failure was as much a fault of the script as his erratic, overreaching delivery.
As for the ladies ... I try to avoid pre-press as often as possible so as to preserve at least a moment or two of personal surprise. That said, I was eager to see who was cast as the face that launched a thousand ships. In this aspect alone, Diane Kruger did not disappoint. Beyond the first six hours, er ... 40 minutes, though, she regressed to her initial purpose -- one-dimensional scenery. Similarly, Andromache, played by Saffron Burrows, added initial depth to Bana's Hector as his wife and the mother of his child.
Throughout the long afternoon, however, she evolved into an unforgivable caricature.
Greek and Roman mythology is permeated by strong female characters, a concept lost on Petersen's direction and David Benioff's script. The only redeeming female role is that of Briseis, played by Rose Byrne. Her role succeeds, in this film, in clinching the transformation of Pitt's Achilles from half-god into pure human, a deviation, again, from 'The Illiad', but an apparently intentional plot device by Petersen. Looking forward to seeing Byrne in future projects.
As for the other legends, I'll address two. Sean Bean's Odysseus was remarkably well-developed (and well-acted) given such little screen time. It would have been nice to see more of his character. Ajax (Tyler Mane), on the other hand, was given no more than a single nominal mention, a single fight scene establishing his prowess and the requisite loss as demanded by Homer. For as much as Petersen/Benioff left out, they must have owed Mane a favor to keep his celluloid presence off the cutting-room floor.
Choreography. This was essentially a Pitt-Bana celebrity death match. The actors' dedication and training in preparation for the individual fight scenes was impressive. I always wondered what mortal combat between two men, two spears, two shields and two swords would truly have looked like. This idea applies not only to Pitt-Bana, but to the rest of the one-on-one scenarios. Sorry, neither 'Gladiator' nor any predecessor quite did it for me.
The CGI in the mass formations is well done, but has truly passed the point of being trite. As a truly "visual" person and student of history, I enjoy seeing the great battles, fictional or not, represented on the big screen. Seeing the armies clash, however, is somewhat less intense than seeing the armies form, the expectation of what is to come, the true drama. In this aspect, Troy succeeds, as the Greeks pour over the hills en route to the fortress. The mass collision of might comes off as anti-climactic.
Where 'Troy' and 'The Last Samurai' (reference my review) fail, 'Gettysburg', 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Braveheart', the assault on Helm's Deep and even 'Gunga Din' succeed.
I did have a small issue with the work stoppage surrounding the Hector-Patroclus encounter. That this could be resolved, followed by two of the mortal enemies "calling it a day", their armies dissolving into the safety of their encampments was about the biggest leap of faith I can imagine given the masses of men supposedly involved. I mean, imagine the warriors at either end of the conflict.
[The Greeks] "Hey! Stop, guys! We're all going back to the ships for dinner!"
[The Trojans] "Gentlemen! Back to the fort. Hearty meals and good lovin' tonight!"
[All, in unison] "Um ... sure, okay. See you tomorrow, you (invading/entrenched) heathens."
Screenplay/dialogue. As a movie, if you aren't a history nut -- with an obligatory interest in classic mythology -- like myself, it is entertaining. Acting, on the male side, is all you'd expect it to be given this line up. For the female side, the three ladies were attractive for sure, but distracted from the story at this level. You can forget very quickly that this war is the result of Helen leaving Menelaus.
Benioff earns a well-deserved Razzie for this one, and Petersen should be reprimanded by the studio execs for misallocating funds. I couldn't do it better myself, but I guarantee that another talented director could have included more of the myth in the retelling than Petersen did, given what this budget and this amount of celluloid allowed. Two(?) location sites, a soundstage and half a story is all he could muster? Seriously?
As an adaptation, I had major issues with plots and dialogue. I am no longer familiar enough with the minute details of 'The Illiad', though I did identify a number of the glaring errors. I leave that task to others. While I enjoy most attempts at adaptations, I understand the limitations of time, attention span and talent (on both sides of the camera) that destine them to inevitably fall short of the original.
Still, $200 million and nearly three hours should have yielded a more respectable effort.
Finally, it is only the ring of familiar, ages-old, larger-than-life names that allows the viewer to overlook the serious discrepancies.
Conclusion. I liked the movie for what it was, but not what it tried to be. In the end, Petersen attempts to bring the legend, the myth of Homer into the 21st Century. 'Troy' strives to be 'LOTR' in scope and 'Gettysburg' in terms of sympathetic characters on either side.
The absence of the gods, most of the original supernatural elements and a much-lacking representation of the epic poem reduce this film to a spectacular gang fight a la S.E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders'.