Passion, blood, catharsis

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2005)

I often had the impression that Greek legends are just about people loving each other and being unhappy because of that. 'Troy' is an excellent example of that, as couples love each other extreme, but none of them have a beautiful life in peace. Men do love their spouse, but they love more pride, honor, glory and patriotism, so they leave to fight against each other, they are being killed on the battlefield and women are left alone in tears and perhaps this is why they are loved by their women. I think these are all real values, no problem with that; however on my list of values love for my wife and family comes before some honor of a victory.
If you are not familiar with the legend of the Trojan War, just relax, as the story differs from the usual storyline known from the most known interpretations - the 'Iliad' or the 'Odyssey' of Homer or from the later Roman book II of Virgil's 'Aeneid' - at several points and you would be probably upset examining which parts are conform to the ancient literature and which aren't. I don't see it as a problem, as in my understanding a legend is a legend because you can alter it if you like. So here's a little summary of Petersen's simplified version, which contains just the right amount of happening for a movie.
We have the Greeks on the West, led by power hungry king Agamemnon (Brian Cox). He loves war and takes every opportunity to conquer on a new land. This way, he turns almost all the neighboring kingdoms to be his servant and their soldiers to fight for him. On the West, we have Troy, separated from the Greeks by the sea, almost the only kingdom resisting the Greek attacks, ruled by the old and wise king Priam (Peter O'Toole). King Priam sends his two sons, the elder Hector (Eric Bana) and the younger Paris (Orlando Bloom), to make peace with one of the kingdoms in Greece, Sparta. However, in Sparta, Paris falls in love with Helen (Diane Kruger), wife of Menelaus (Brandon Gleeson), king of Sparta. So, on the way back, Paris simply eloped Helen on his boat. Here we go, Menelaus gets angry, wants his wife back, and king Agamemnon is just happy to have an apropos to gather all his armies and attack Troy. They sail over to the shores of Troy and the war begins. A key element in the war is super hero soldier and king of Myrmidons, Achilles (Brad Pitt) and the of course the large wooden horse. Though in the legends the war lasts for 10 years, here in the film it is only a couple of days.
However, in the 2.5 hours of the DVD, there was way too much blood for me. Achilles, then great Greek warrior opens the movie by a triumph over Boagrius, the we go on watching soldiers fall in various ways, however I just got tired having every ten minutes someone with his blood spreading out. Of course, this movie is about a legend of a great war, but it was just too much for me.
I was happy for the lack of Gods being shown on screen - people pray to them, call for them, there are temples and statues of them, but except a short appearance of the mother of Achilles in the beginning, fortunately no any God appears. We see things happening 'from the Earth' perspective and this way everything were so real compared to those 'fairy tale' like adaptations I had seen in my childhood. Otherwise, I got the most popular aspects of the Greek legend I expected: beautiful Helen taken away by Trojan prince Paris, the giant wooden horse full of Greeks and hero Achilles being hit on his tendon.
Before I started to watch the film, I had the impression this won't be a romantic comedy and it really wasn't. 30 minutes before the end I became sure that all heroes I got to like during the story will die soon - after several hits on each side, the war finally gets an ending when the Greeks pretended to withdraw, leaving behind them a large wooden horse with a raiding party concealed inside. When the Trojans brought the horse into their city, the hidden Greeks opened the gates to their comrades, who then sacked Troy, massacred its men, and carried off its women. Ergo there's no happy ending and you live the cinema with this certain though complete but pleasing sadness.
The extent to which the story reflects actual historical events is not known, and the version in the film remembers me to the Medieval European writers, who unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals; see the French 'Roman de Troie' (1154) or the English 'The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye' (1474).
In summary, the movie reaches to be monumental, with a huge number of extra, with pictures, colors, landscapes, costumes being magnificent throughout the film, however we don't get that outstanding acting like in Ben Hur or Cleopatra, therefore I rate it 7/10.