A Movie of Epic Proportions

Rating: 10/10 (24 May 2004)

This year's starting blockbusters of the summer include TROY, but don't expect the movie to be anything like the epic poem, 'The Iliad'. Characters that die in the poem live in the movie and characters that shouldn't die in the movie live in the poem. There's a reason why this movie is called TROY and not 'The Iliad', as the movie's ending credits clearly point out that the movie was 'inspired by the Iliad', so don't watch TROY expecting it will be like 'The Iliad'.
TROY, directed by Wolfgang Peterson, is entertaining from start to finish, considering it contains three of the most hottest men in Hollywood: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, and Orlando Bloom, all in skirts. The movie starts off in ancient Greece, where Trojan Prince Hector (Eric Bana) and Prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) have come to Sparta on a diplomatic mission to make peace with Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), the Spartan king. Unbeknownst to Menelaus, Helen (Diane Kruger), his wife and Queen of Sparta, is having a passionate affair with Paris, the Prince of Troy. Their love will ignite a war that will lead to endless destruction and devastation of both countries. Thus when Paris steals Helen away, Menelaus is insulted and wages war against Troy with his brother, Agamemnon, (Brian Cox) who finds this a perfect excuse to conquer Troy. But in order to conquer Troy's vast defensive walls, Agamemnon needs the help of Achilles, (Brad Pitt) believed to be the greatest warrior alive. And thus ensues a vicious battle fought over greed, honor, destiny, but most of all, love. And for love, a nation will fall and burn to the ground, leaving history its most devastating story ever.
Brad Pitt is perfect as Achilles. Besides his finely chiseled body, which for some reason the director felt had to be shown in almost every scene, his performance truly brought out the defiant, arrogant, rebellious, invincible warrior side of Achilles. However, Pitt's acting was wooden in a few scenes, which is hard to blame him because he is a terrific actor and it isn't his fault his lines sound so lame. The fault goes to the atrocious script that David Benioff wrote and the terrible soundtrack James Horner offers. Orlando Bloom as Paris, still needs to hone his craft; however, he played Paris convincingly enough for the audience to understand that Paris is a womanizing, pathetic excuse for a warrior. His best scene is when he loses to Menelaus and crawls back to his brother, clutching his brother's leg, imploring Hector to save him, showing the coward that Paris really is.
But the true star and savior of the movie is Eric Bana with his excellent portrayal of Hector, the heir and Prince of Troy. His performance was truly memorable and his screen presence was captivating; he was one of the film's few truly sympathetic characters. Bana is very convincing as this passionate father, son, husband, and warrior all wrapped into one human being. His battle scene with Pitt is perhaps the best and most riveting fight scene of all time. Bana conveyed perfectly all the expressions of love, anger, fear, hatred, pride and suffering in his eyes, while Brad just looked fierce the whole time, even in his death; the only exception was when Achilles sobs over Hector's body, which was Pitt's best scene. Helen's scenes, played by Diane Kruger, are nothing short of contrived; in fact, they're barely bearable. She looks stupid half the time and there is no chemistry between her and Bloom, but she is no doubt beautiful, but it is very hard to believe that her face is the face that launched a thousand ships. Instead, Saffron Burrows who plays Andromache gives easily the best performance out of all the female characters. The chemistry between her and Bana is very believable.
In the end, it all comes down to Eric Bana's brilliant deliverance and TROY's terrific CGI sequences. The choreographing for the battle scenes can be at times, tiring but it's nothing like The Matrix Reloaded's monotonous fight scenes, in fact the battle scenes in TROY were very well done, but don't expect any Oscar award winning performances, save Eric Bana's. TROY is just a nice summer blockbuster to get viewers excited about Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter 3. It's a nice way to spend $9.50 and 3 hours in a movie theatre, plus it's a perfect excuse to watch and drool over three very good-looking men with very chiseled bodies.