Weak, bloated attempt at an epic

Rating: 5/10 (9 September 2007)

Many thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, ambitious, self-serving nationalist Greek King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) is reducing the various tribes of Greece, by force or persuasion, with the very reluctant aid of seemingly-invincible mercenary Achilles (Brad Pitt) and his Myrmadons. With virtually all of Greece absorbed by Agamemnon's empire, there remains the island city of Troy, ruled by the senile old King Priam (Peter O'Toole). When Helen (Diane Kruger), Queen of Sparta, is seduced by Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) and returns to Troy with her, her husband Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) enlists the help of Agamemnon (his brother) to capture Troy and avenge this humiliation. So begins the mythical siege of Troy, depicted in a dramatic but plausible manner, with any of those stupid Greek gods interfering in the story.
"Troy" was one of the many films which was released in the wave of new historical epics. After the astonishing success of "Gladiator", more latter-day swords and sandals films were made, and the public responded with favorable results. The fad seems to have ebbed for the moment, but in the early part of the decade the world clamored with excitement for the release of these films. Not only were they not as "dated" or "boring" as their older equivalents, they had *CGI!* Now, why bother to build sets or use extras when you can create them with a click of a mouse? That is basically the film's main flaw. For all its technical ballyhoo, for all it's attractive big-name cast and epic battle scenes, "Troy" is a soulless epic, which lacks in intelligence and heart. It's just a big, bulky blockbuster that tries but fails to hearken back to the heyday of bloated historical epics.
Most of the older historical epics were just as bad as "Troy": only a handful even attempted to raise intelligent debate about issues, most featured embarrassing religious codas demanded by the public, and featured laughably anachronistic scripts and laughably miscast actors. But at least these films, for all their flaws, had something of a heart, a feeling stirred by seeing REAL crowds of people and REAL costumes and REAL sets, not fake, grainy CGI replications. There are lots of extras, surely, there are real sets, but the bulk of the larger action scenes rely on computer graphics, creating an emptiness that the film suffers for.
The movie isn't helped at all by a weak screenplay and horrendous casting. None of the films' characters are anything but hastily-sketched cyphers, each with a simple motivation. The few characters who are well-drawn, like Hector (Eric Bana) and Achilles, are largely the credit of the actors playing them. While the film's removal of the Greek gods from the storyline was probably a wise move, it doesn't make up for their absence with any sense of interest or wonder. It's just there.
There are moments of the film which work. The musical score by James Horner is effective, for the most part. The battle scenes are mixed in quality. The opening attack of Achilles' Myramons on the Trojan beach is an expert bit of swordplay; the one-on-one fight between Achilles and Hector is an intense and physical combat, and definitely the best scene of the movies. The scene where King Priam arrives in Achilles' tent to ask for the body of his fallen son is genuinely emotional due to brilliant acting by both O'Toole and Pitt. And Achilles' ultimate fate, due to his lacking superhuman powers, is a clever bit of business which the film could have used more of. But these are fairly small blips on the radar of a bloated film that goes on for way too long to maintain interest - at least with these characters and this script.
The film's star casting hearkens back to the '50s pseudo-epics who resulted in minimally talented big stars rather than talented actors playing period parts. While there are some fine actors in the cast, many of the performances are weak. Brad Pitt does an admirable job as Achilles, contributing some fine moments to the film, but overall he cannot overcome the limitations of the part, or his own miscasting. Orlando Bloom proves for the fifty-six-hundredth time that he does not belong in front of a movie camera. Teen girls may find him attractive, but he can't act. Diane Kruger as Helen isn't much better. On the other hand, Eric Bana gives a brilliantly well-rounded performance as Prince Hector, making his character a surprisingly complex personage, and Sean Bean makes the most of his underwritten part as Odysseus. Other talented actors aren't so lucky: Peter O'Toole has little to work with outside of the aforementioned scene, Julie Christie's cameo is too brief to have any impact, Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson play stock villain characters, and the rest of the cast isn't even worth mentioning.
"Troy" is just a big, bloated disappointment. It has elements of a great film, but over-reliance on big-name stars and CGI, a terrible screenplay, and static direction makes it a frustratingly flat experience.
5/10