Entertaining but flawed

Rating: 6/10 (13 September 2009)

I should preface my remarks by stating that I am basing them upon the director's cut rather than the theatrical release.
Troy is an entertaining thrill ride that ultimately turns out to be--for the most part--emotionally hollow. This is disappointing, because the story of Troy is one of the first great stories and deserves better treatment.
The action sequences in the film, to be sure, are exciting to watch, whether it's the seamless integration of live action and CGI in the large scale battles or the intricate choreography of the one-on-one fights (Achilles' duel with Hector is, as expected, a highlight). But action alone doesn't make a good movie (as we've been trying to tell Michael Bay for years).
Fortunately, Troy also benefits from some good performances, especially from its two leads, Brad Pitt as Achilles and Eric Bana as Hector. Pitt deserves a lot of praise here; he spends most of the movie playing a character who is largely unsympathetic. Achilles treats most people around him with contempt. However, partly because he's Brad freakin' Pitt, but also because he's a talented actor, Pitt manages to make us feel there's more to Achilles than how he appears superficially.
Bana has the easier part as the respected leader and family man, but still gives Hector a lot of depth. He and Saffron Burrows were particularly affecting in their scenes together. Peter O'Toole is also quite good as Priam. His scene with Pitt, where he begs for the return of his son's body, is the highlight of the film in my opinion; it brought one of the greatest scenes in literature to life and was one of the few truly affecting moments in the movie. And Sean Bean, as usual, shines in his few moments as the under-used Odysseus.
However, while Troy is largely rescued by its epic battles and solid performances, it never achieves or even comes close to greatness. The film is weighted down by many problems. The Paris/Helen love story is difficult to pull off, especially since it's almost impossible to avoid portraying Paris as selfish and callow. It doesn't help that he's played by Orlando Bloom; while Bloom is a talented actor, he seems to have largely outworn his welcome from movie-goers. Another problem is the two-dimensional portrayal of a villainous, power-hungry Agamemnon. Brian Cox can chew scenery like no one's business, but he's capable of so much more.
>SPOILER ALERT<
The biggest problem, however, is that at the end, the writer and director took the cheap, predictable, Hollywood way out. The reason why the story of Troy is so powerful and long-lasting is the devastating impact of the war on nearly all of its participants. Consider: in the legend of Troy, Paris dies, along with all of the Trojan royal family; Ajax goes crazy and kills himself; Helen, after being forced to marry another Trojan prince, is captured and returned to Menelaus; Andromache's infant son is thrown to his death from Troy's walls, then she becomes a slave and concubine of the son of the man who killed her husband; Odysseus is condemned to exile from his home for 10 years... you get the picture. And don't get me started on the sorry fate of some of the characters who were left out of the film, such as Hecuba and Cassandra.
Compare that to how lightly everyone gets off in this film. The only Trojans who die are the grey-haired ones; in an all-too-typical and cynical Hollywood rewrite of the legend, almost everybody who's young and pretty gets to live. Yes, Hector and Achilles die, but they were warriors and so it was more or less expected they would. As a result, the war, bizarrely, appears to have had very little impact on anyone, and that robs the film of any emotional resonance.
The overall message of the legend of Troy is that while there is glory and honour and heroism to be found in times of war, there is also tragedy and brutality and death--and that the worst suffering often befalls innocents with little or no connection to the fighting. That message is completely lost in this rather shallow film, and that's unfortunate, perhaps even tragic, because a story this epic deserves much, much better treatment.