in defense of Troy

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2004)

I caught Troy in theatres, heading in with lowered expectations. The sense I'd gotten from reviews on the Internet I'd read was that this was a mediocre attempt at something potentially great. I bought that. And before I go into anything, let me just state here that I wasn't enthralled by Troy or anything like that, but I did like it and question those who chose to bash it so much.
I really don't understand those people that want to attack its "historical accuracy". Everyone should know that this is not about something that actually happened. It is a work of fiction. I wonder if people simply assume a movie is based on true events if it's set a long,long time ago (like hundreds or thousands of years). Troy wasn't even a real place. It may have been loosely based on some real places but the fact remains that it was made up. Anyway, I'm not going to get into all that. I'm just surprised that so many people seem to not have a clue about The Illiad.
I thought the movie was well-filmed and that even the stuff that wasn't battles was entertaining enough to sit through. To me personally, the fight scenes were way cooler than those in Gladiator (I feel it's fair to compare the fight scenes in these two movies as they're based on similar kinds of combat and the movies were only made a few years apart from each other).
People shouldn't attack how one-dimensional any of the characters were since this is based on a thousands-year-old epic full of one-dimensional characters. The film-makers actually tried to give Achilles some depth by making him all angsty and questioning fighting. In the poem, Achilles was a hero cause he was great at killing and he never questioned anything - end of story.
My main problem with the movie is the omission of the stuff that would probably have everyone (well, not everyone obviously) complaining were it included and that's the mythological elements of the story. They were completely cut out. Of course, the characters go on and on about their gods but we're quickly shown that there are no gods as everything that happens in the movie has a logical explanation behind it. They even ruined Achilles' death this way - they showed him get the arrow in the heel but then made a point of having two more arrows strike him in the CHEST to bring him down. These two arrows get pulled out before he dies and he is found with the single arrow through his heel suggesting that this is why people said his heel was his only weak point. I find it odd to remove mythological elements from a story that's fictional anyway. Now stay with me on this point before you think I'm saying something completely different. I'm going to use the word "pretend" here so people don't freak out: let's Pretend that the whole story of Jesus Christ is just a fictional story like Troy. Now let's say that the movie The Last Temptation of Christ is made about this fictional story. Only for some reason, the film makers see fit to come up with rational explanations for events that happened in the story that were supposed to be miracles or the work of God. Like, I don't know, having Jesus have a bunch of wine hidden at that party so that people were only lead to believe that he'd turned water into wine. Why do that? After all, aren't the supernatural events what make the story interesting and worth telling? The characters talk about Achilles being the son of a god and that's why he's so great but the movie makes it clear he's not. If he'd been invulnerable to all injuries except for his heel (like he is in the actual story) then it would have been clear that he was the son of a god but the film makers made sure that we knew he wasn't. That there were no gods. I just don't understand that. It's true that even with the supernatural elements removed, there is still an interesting story there but I just don't see the need to leave them out. If people were afraid that today's audiences wouldn't buy the gods doing stuff, then why would they buy a huge war being waged because of one woman? And I hope we don't live in that world anyway. It's a movie about something fictional, it's not real, so you don't have to buy into anything anyway. Just watch it. Or don't.
It just would have been cool to see the more mythological aspects kept in. I don't even really disagree with the changing of other things like the decision to make Agamemnon a total jerk (ditto Menalaus) and have him get killed (ditto Menelaus).
Anyway, I wound up liking Troy may more than I thought I was going to and I'm so far baffled by most people's complaints about it (I've read reviews on here in which people stated that characters didn't get scarred or dirty - are these people blind? what movie were they watching?) but that's not to say that it's a fantastic movie or anything. I've named my criticisms and they make sense. It's fine with me if you hate the movie but don't hate it for "historical inaccuracy" - that makes no sense. Don't hate it for things like "the war is senseless" or "Achilles is one-dimensional" - those are part of the original story and sort of the point - if you don't like that stuff, take it up with Homer. People should learn to read. Also, don't get so hung up on the fact that Brad Pitt shows a lot of skin - that has nothing to do with anything.