The movie Troy fails to capture the essential theme of Homer's Iliad

Rating: 4/10 (1 February 2014)

Why tell this story? To have Brat Pitt look cool as one of the most famous heroes? To show off that now we do have the CGI technology to depict large scale battles? Or can there be some other reason to tell this story?
For the last 3000 years every educated man in the western world learned the Iliad. This may be the first generation that does not know and understand the Iliad and it's themes. The movie 'Troy' does not in the slightest try to make up for this.
The most blatant omission are the gods. It seems the writers of the script made the fatal mistake into thinking that the gods in the Iliad are merely allegorical. But the story of the Iliad is about how mortals are at the whim of the immortals. The paradox in the Iliad, where a skilled fighter is skilled because the gods help him and the gods help fighters that are skilled, is ignored.
The biggest problem this creates is in the scene were Paris fights Menelaus. In the movie Hector interferes in the duel and kills a defenseless Menelaus, who did not expect Hector to cheat (the gods punish cheaters, but hey they don't exist in the movie, remember). In the Iliad, Hector is held up as a paragon of virtue and depicted as a honourable man. This move by Hector explains how Paris survives the duel and how the fighting starts again without Aphrodite teleporting Paris to Helen's bedchamber.
The only scene out of place here is Achilles with his mother. His mother is a mere mortal, but she can tell him of his fate?
The most important part of the Iliad is Achilles and his anger, his mortality, and his decision. This is actually depicted in the movie. But it is done so in a way that doesn't work.
The book has a lot of dialogue and a lot of scenes that do not appear in the movie. Usually when Hollywood puts a book into a movie, it is different. Lots of scenes are ignored and lots of filler fighting scenes are added; to speed up the story. But this movie slows down the plot by adding meaningless filler dialogue scenes. Often they are very bad and make no sense. Where is the scene where Achilles is offered everything Agamemnon has, but refuses.
The whole thing with Briseis makes no sense. She is taken, then given to men to rape, and Achilles gets her back for free. Why? To be able to inject a romance scene for the girls, and an erotic scene for the boys? But then Achilles wants to go home anyway (because Menelaus is dead so getting Helen makes no sense?, so no reason to fight on?). Really? They decided to kill of Menelaus, filmed the scene, then figured out only much later that with Menelaus dead, there is no point in fighting onward? I can't believe they had to have Menelaus killed to give Achilles a new reason not to fight.
Hector is made a foil to the Greeks because he killed Menelaus, not because he singlehandedly wins the war (because that is what Zeus wills). Takes away a lot.
Then, Patroclus sneaks out in secret. Why? They are leaving anyway. He is not send out by Achilles. So Patroclus defies and betrays Achilles. This takes away from Achilles decision to be angry with himself. In the Iliad he blames himself and that is partly why he wants to fight Hector.
There are two characters in the Iliad the narrator wants you to feel connected with; Menelaus and Patroclus. One is killed off, the other is portrayed like a silly boy with no sense that betrays Achilles. Patroclus was older than Achilles. But in the movie he is portrayed backwards. Younger and even more foolish.
After the death of Patroclus, there is no scene of Achilles rejecting life. In the Iliad before he fights his final battles (and he doesn't die in the Iliad), he is reminded several times of his fate. Homer even has his horse gain the ability to speak, a silly scene in the Iliad, just to remind the reader once more and hammer down this point. A silly scene but put in to have a stronger thematic effect. And Achilles repeats it himself several times and unlike others like Lycaon, who cannot accept death and begs Achilles, who has already accepted his own death, for his life. No such scenes in the movie.
In fact, there is no scene where a dying person speaks his last words. No Hector mocking Patroclus with Patroclus responding. No Hector final words. Even the scene before Hector and Achilles fight has no dialogue from the actual story. Why? Is what they made up better? No scene of Achilles on his immortal rampage at all, routing the Troyan army all on his own. Why? They wanted an anticlimax instead of a climax for this movie?
In the book Hector is given a reason to fight Achilles. He knows he is the lesser fighter. But he is dishounored because he did not follow Polydamas's advice and he has a tiny bit of a hope Zeus, who favoured him for a long time, still favours him. In the movie he just fights. No reason given. Only the pact over the body that is not made is there.
They take off helmets, because you need to see faces, and then the silly Hollywood battle, with all those moves that make no sense. But for what it is, this movie does it pretty good.
So all thematic effect is lost. What is this movie about? All good dialogue ignored and replaced with silly Hollywood stuff. Makes no sense. The people who created this believe their audience to be idiots or were idiots themselves. No other way for me to explain it.