Great Summer Movie

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2004)

The movie is not as bad as some critics had hoped it would be, and I suspect that some reviews were written even before the film was released. Some reviewers' prejudice appears in their selective gripes--attacking Brad Pitt's Midwestern accent as inappropriately Homeric, but saying nothing of Eric Bana's rather more pronounced Australian accent--or overpraising the fine contributions of British actors Peter O'Toole and Brian Cox as backhanded critiques of Pitt's fine physical performance as Achilles. Both Pitt and Bana are terrific in this movie, and, sure, the movie doesn't measure up to Homer's Iliad (someone expected it to?), but it's good entertainment and perhaps Hollywood's best representation of the ancient world since Anthony Mann's "The Fall of the Roman Empire." I agree with Roger Ebert that computer-generated visuals add nothing to the movie (already they look as phony and dating as the old rear-screen projections of the 1950s). Also, Garret Hedlund's debut as Patrocles and Julie Christie's cameo as Achilles' mother are fairly unimpressive. Still, the movie depicts heroic and craven behavior on both sides of the war, without taking sides, and depicts the human cost of warfare and the nobility of principled warriors and humane leaders--in this respect, "Troy" is a lot like Homer and unlike such constipated, vicious, yet critically praised historical epics as "Braveheart."