Good Movie, Lousy Adaptation

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2004)

I enjoyed the movie Troy, but was disappointed at the way Homer's work was butchered. Iliad was about events that occurred in the tenth year of the siege of Troy. The Greeks had come to Troy thinking it would be easy pickings and instead found themselves fighting a nightmarish never ending battle. Troy was Vietnam for Mycenean Greece.
Wolfgang Petersen attempts to do what even Homer never attempted; instead of taking one single story of the war and using it as a metaphor for the greater whole, Petersen scrunches together the whole war with its various tales, digressions, and consequences, and tries to make a single story of it. His version of the Battle of Troy plays fast and loose with the traditional details, and in attempting a task of such great scope, misses out on some powerful lessons about humanity, human behavior, and human nature. Wolfgang Petersen is no Homer.
This said, the movie is still tremendously engaging and interesting to watch. Computer-generated battle sequences are mesmerizing and in some cases improvements over those seen in the Hobbit films. Single combat is portrayed with great style and ingenuity and is truly frightening at times. The cast is able (Pitt is quite good as Achilles, Bloom is likewise appropriately flowery and dislikeable as Paris Alexandros). The scale and scope of the film is epic, grandiose, and impressive.