Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2004)

Ancient Greece was a very tidy place, or at least that's what the makers of Troy would have us believe. In the scenes following battles, Brad Pitt and his band of Greek soldiers look as pretty and well-kept as any shampoo commercial extras. They're chiseled bodies are clean-shaven, scar-free, and completely devoid of any of the dirt, blood, or other debris that would usually occupy a person after a battle. Not very realistic, don't ya think?
That's what I thought too. There's no way that, following a bloody battle where heads, arms, legs, and other appendages get lopped off in the most grotesque ways, soldiers could come off the battlefield as clean as this. In fact, out of all the characters in Troy, only evil generals Agamemnon and Menelaus, played by Brian Cox (X-men 2, L.I.E.) and Brendan Gleeson (Braveheart, 28 Days Later, Gangs of New York) look as hairy and dirty as one would imagine their characters would.
Troy, ineptly directed by Wolfgang Peterson (Air Force One, In the Line of Fire, The Perfect Storm), comes off as a film that doesn't know quite what it wants to be. Does it want to have the quiet personal notes mixed in with the one-on-one carnage of the much-superior Gladiator, or is it striving for the grand CG battles of Lord of the Rings? This dichotomy of aspirations causes it to fall short on both accounts. In its pursuit of being the ultimate battle-carnage-swords-and-sandals epic, the audience is left with nothing but comparisons to better films. This is not to say Troy doesn't have its moments of awe mixed in with the mediocrity. The sets are great, the costumes are appropriately realistic, and several of the CG shots look amazing, albeit strangely out of focus in some instances. Also, the performances of Cox, Gleeson, Eric Bana as Hector, and Sean Bean as Odysseus are so good that I wish the entire film had been about them. The scenes where they're on screen have such a gravity to them that their characters almost pull us away from the been-there-done-that feel of the rest of the movie. I think this could be because none of them are in the same realm, publicity-wise, as Brad Pitt. Their characters are made more believable by the fact that we don't know as much about their personal lives as we do Pitt's. In fact, I would have to say the casting of Brad Pitt is one of the biggest problems with this film.
Now, before I commence trashing his performance in Troy, let me say that I generally regard him as one of my favorite actors; when he picks the right roles, that is. In Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven, Se7en, 12 Monkeys, and others, he shows he's not just a pretty face, and that he has some definite acting chops. The problem is that he's so visible a superstar that we don't buy him in the least as Achilles. I understand that being the son of a goddess would probably make Achilles a pretty attractive dude, but he is still a warrior. He would still have battle scars, still get dirty, and (gasp!), his hair wouldn't always look like he just walked out of a Pantene commercial. Pitt's performance isn't bad per-se, just average. His fight scenes are nifty, if a little over-choreographed, and his hairless body shows off every muscle to perfection (not to mention his ass, which we get to see a few times too many). Pitt's line delivery is a little shaky, though. His lines are generally delivered with a growl that makes him sound about as menacing as my grandmother with laryngitis. Of course, I can't pin all the blame for his performance on him, since he isn't really given all that much to work with. The script, written by David Benioff (The 25th Hour), is at best summer movie cheese and at worst, a blatant rip-off of Gladiator ('Are you not entertained?' has now been changed to, 'Is there no one else?'), with none of the latter's originality or transcendent philosophizing.
Another major problem with this film is in an area one generally only notices when it's obviously good or obviously bad, the score. Star Wars, Schindler's List, Gladiator, and Lord of the Rings are prime examples of how an epic movie can be made even more epic in scope by having powerful music behind it. Even Titanic had a score so powerful that I'll cop to humming it for days afterward. Unfortunately, Troy has a musical score that is only memorable for being trite, lazy, redundant, and just plain bad. Noticeably bad. Resoundingly bad. Listening to Troy is like playing a cinema version of name that tune; one can immediately pick out melodic lines ripped directly from Braveheart, Gladiator, Stargate, and Enemy at the Gates. James Horner, apart from composing Troy, is generally one of the more dependable composers scoring for films today, even composing scores for Titanic, Braveheart, and Enemy at the Gates, and winning a few Oscars in the process. This is part of the problem with his compositions in Troy. His previous works are so recognizable that it's obvious when he's ripping himself off. An interesting point to mention is that Horner wasn't Peterson's first choice for Troy. Composer Gabriel Yared (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and the upcoming Shall we dance?) had composed and recorded a complete soundtrack for Troy, but Peterson, at the last moment, decided to reject it as being too old-fashioned and commissioned Horner to write a brand new score. I find that interesting, considering the entire point of Troy is to be an old-fashioned swords-and-sandals epic. I hope sometime they release Yared's original work so comparisons can be made between the two.
Altogether, I don't think Troy is an awful movie. It's not even a particularly bad one. For a summer distraction, there are much worse ways to spend three hours. The problem I had was that it was just average, not spectacular in any way. Given the cast and budget, Troy could have been great and to have it turn out to be so mediocre is a real disappointment. With all of the budget crunches going on right now at both the state and federal levels of government, I can't help but think that the $200 million spent on making this film could have been much more wisely spent.