Trojan Triumph

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2004)

I consider myself fairly well read, but I must confess to never having waded through a Homer epic. Indeed, before last week my knowledge of Greek mythology in general was hazy to say the least. I knew a bit about the Iliad, some bird called Helen, and never looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but that's about it. After close-on three hours watching Wolfgang Petersen's Troy, I am not really any the wiser (aside from learning that the Achilles fellow slept in the buff and Trojan Prince Paris had ongoing facial hair issues).
But that's not really the point of Troy: Hollywood epics rarely let anything as humdrum as historical or literary accuracy get in the way of a good story. I subscribe to the theory that the further back in time you go, the more artistic licence you are entitled to. This one is set in 1200 BC, so Petersen has a fair bit to work with. I went in with low expectations. The reviews were mixed at best  all the usual bleating about wooden acting and pretentious dialogue  but I am happy to report they are all wrong: Troy is a triumph. Actually, they are right about the acting and the dialogue, but I'd feel short-changed if the stars of Hollywood didn't try to affect ridiculous Alec Guinness accents when faced with a project like this. I can also only applaud Sean Bean's decision to make Greek king Odysseus sound like he was born and raised in Sheffield.
As an epic piece of cinema, I can't praise Troy highly enough: Yes it is a touch showy and overblown, but when you put as much oomph into the special effects and fight scenes as this, some extravagance is justified. The key point is that Troy is not simply a straightforward conflict between good and evil. Hollywood has an exceedingly tiresome habit of lionising its epic heroes and demonising its villains. William Wallace maybe had some quixotic notion of freedom, but he was also a savage and an outlaw  watching Braveheart, you'd think that he spent all day skipping through meadows with baby lambs and still found time to end world poverty and find a cure for cancer.
Troy spends no time polishing halos. The characters here are rough-hewn and spiky. Achilles (Brad Pitt) may have smouldering eyes and abs you could eat your dinner off, but he is cold and self-important. He is not interested in wishy-washy abstract ideals such as cultural identity  his legend is all that matters. The Trojan Princes are the opposite. Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom) love their country and their people, but these are no saints. Hector's army will stop at nothing to repel the Greek invaders (including sneak attacks in the middle of the night), while Paris does a nice line in wife-stealing. Petersen's one concession to stereotyping is the greedy, power-crazed Agamemnon (Brian Cox in full pantomime villain mode) whose relationship with bolshy star soldier Achilles provides the key conflict of the movie.
Troy is not without its flaws. Diane Kruger is either wildly miscast as Helen or a lot of her good scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Petersen seems a little puzzled as to what to do with Helen despite the fact that her relationship with Paris is the reason for the Greek invasion of Troy. Indeed, of the female characters, only Briseis (Rose Byrne), Hector's devoutly religious cousin who develops an unlikely alliance with Achilles, has any real clout. Mostly they serve as eye-candy, which is fine as far as it goes, but irritating when it impedes the plot. Main offender is Saffron Burrows, who gurns and squirms and clutches her baby to her bosom, but serves no real dramatic purpose as Hector's wife Andromache. Indeed, the pivotal sword fight between Hector and Achilles which is very close to being a cinematic work of art is marred by pointless cutaways to Burrows anxiously biting her bottom lip.
There is terrific unintentional humour as well such as Odysseus studying a Greek soldier carving a small wooden horse for his son back home, sitting back and stroking his beard thoughtfully. Evidently having devised some fiendishly clever scheme, he eventually looks up triumphantly  all that is missing is a light bulb pinging over his head. Sure enough, moments later, the beach is deserted save one massive creaking Trojan Horse.
Bean may be playing it for laughs, but this movie belongs to Pitt. Alec Guinness impersonation aside, he truly convinces as a (literally) well-oiled fighting machine simply bristling with menace. Much has been made of his body and especially the copious amounts of rippling flesh that is constantly on display, but what really comes through is his sheer athleticism. I don't know if he did any of his own stunts, but hats off to his body double if he didn't. At any rate, his performance certainly left the ladies walking out of the cinema with big soppy grins on their faces and their boyfriends surreptitiously squeezing in their stomachs.
8/10