Good Idea gone BAADDD!

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2004)

I have been looking at the previews for Troy for about a year now. So naturally, I was pretty excited for the film's release: Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Brad Pitt, all great actors.
Unfortunately, all the acting talent in the world could not have made this a better movie. Why? Because the actors had nothing of true good substance to work with. Wolfgang Petersen, whose credits include The Perfect Storm, Air Force One, Outbreak, and In the Line of Fire, should have been able with that experience to come up with a sense of direction. Instead, he gave the film-goer a bunch of pan-away shots, badly blocked shots, and a terrible used-up film score. We all remember Gladiator and the the brilliant story that it told of a fallen soldier who brings honor back to Rome. We all remember that wonderful use of the elements and the haunting, yet uplifting music that was used to tell the story. Wolfgang Petersen should have sat down and taken some serious notes or talked to the Godfather of the movie himself. Actually, Jerry Bruckheimer should have just paid Ridley Scott the extra money and had him direct the movie.
But it is also the screenwriter's fault. The adaptation of the Iliad is a lie. I am not a classicist, but this story was re-written to give a feel-good, cheesy ending to an otherwise horrific-ending story. The women of Troy did not get away, they were turned into slaves and their children were all killed.
Orlando Bloom as Paris was a good idea, but he seemed quite like he wasn't sure what to do. Why? Because his character was not written well. Also, for the face and the affair that launched a thousand ships, there should have been a steamy love scene to bring that home. Orlando Bloom's well-tanned, oiled up body is almost not enough really. We needed to see the guts of how Paris and Helen came together. Diane Krueger has a pretty face, but she is useless as Helen. Like much of the film, there is no resonance with her.
In fact, there is no resonance with much of anything. We should have felt severe emotion during the funeral pyre scenes and yet we feel nothing. Eric Bana was awesome as Hector, he brought home the sense of honor and duty that a son of Troy should have for his country. Saffron Burrows, who annoyed us in Circle of Friends, took a star turn as his wife, Andromache. In fact everybody did a great job with what they had, it just wasn't enough though because of bad screenwriting and poor direction.