Whoops, it's rubbish

Rating: 3/10 (23 March 2007)

What with all the anticipation for the macho thunder epic 300's imminent release, fans of bloody historical battles in movies may be tempted as I was to go back and re-watch Wolfgang Peterson's Troy as a warm up. However, I'd strongly advise against it. My first impression of the movie when it came out a few years back was that it was decent enough but ultimately forgettable and a poor runner up to Gladiator's success. A second viewing nowadays reveals the full extent of Troy's weaknesses and it is undeniably a very poor film, trading any worthy story or acting for spectacle and leaving us with a rather shallow interpretation of an epic conflict.
Set a really, really, really long time ago, the film sees the ruthless Agamemnon (Brian Cox), King of the Greek Empire looking for an excuse to invade his equally powerful neighbour, the nation of Troy. When his brother Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) is humiliated by his wife Helen (Diane Kruger) running off with Paris (Orlando Bloom), prince of Troy, Agamemnon realises his chance and sets sail with a vast armada of warships, crammed to the hilt with Greek warriors in pursuit of conquest. And suckered into this high body-count soap opera come a variety of classical Greek characters, each with his own stamp to leave on the tale.
On the plus side, despite being "based on" Homer's 'The Illiad,' Peterson makes clear this is not a direct transcription of the story. As a result, he jettisons the Gods from the proceedings, reduces the length of the war from ten years to a few months and focuses squarely on the fighting and the people involved. Thus, we are saved the sight of celestial super beings interfering in events and are given a rather straightforward war story. The downside of this however is that somehow, Peterson has managed to make what should have been an Earth shattering conflict come across as more of a quiet little skirmish.
Take for example the initial beach landing as the Greek armada lands on Trojan soil. Leading the charge is Brad Pitt's Achilles who has raced ahead of the rest of the fleet in order to show off. Achilles and his men then go on to win the battle almost entirely by themselves in a logic defying leap designed to show just how dangerous the man is meant to be. Unfortunately, it fails to do so and instead makes the Trojan military force come across as a woefully inept bunch of losers who were lucky to survive this long, their response to Pitt and co landing on their shores being a pathetic flight of arrows when in truth, they should have been wiped out almost immediately by a hail of death.
This doesn't bode well but things begin to brighten up when Agamemnon leads an assault on the city itself. The sight of the huge Greek army piling into the equally-huge Trojan force is the most visually spectacular moment of the film, but sadly it's all over too soon. The subsequents reprisals and the eventual climax to the war can only disappoint, the movie whimpering when it should roar.
The acting meanwhile is a game of two halves. On the one hand, there is the likes of Sean Bean as Odysseus and Pete O'Toole's King Priam lending some heavyweight class, plus Eric Bana's fantastic portrayal of the heroic Hector who is easily the best thing about the movie. Then there is Orlando Bloom's nondescript Paris, Brian Cox's spoilt brat Agamemnon and Brad Pitt's Achilles doing their level best to scupper everything. Indeed, a lot of the time it feels as though the film is turning into a Brad Pitt vanity project, the camera lingering all over him as he pouts into the lens. Somewhat worryingly, he also spends the majority of the film stark naked, turning Achilles from an all powerful force of the Gods into a narcissistic nudist.
These gripes aside, what ultimately wrecks Troy's aspirations of greatness comes in another common-sense defying scene in the later half that puts even the beach assault to shame with its crass stupidity. With both sides drained, morale low and stricken with tragedy, King Priam disguises himself and sneaks into the Greek camp to talk with Achilles in a moment of desperation. Yes, you didn't read that incorrectly, THE KING WALTZES INTO THE ENEMY CAMP IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR TO HAVE A CHAT WITH THEIR CHAMPION AND NOBODY THINKS TO MENTION IT. I mean come on, surely someone in the studio system must have noticed this rather glaring piece of idiocy and pointed out to the director how incredibly stupid it was? Needless to say, this is not a good movie. One impressive battle scene and a charismatic Eric Bana are not enough to save it from drowning under it's own flabby excess. It flits between a classical tale, a war story and a Brad Pitt love-in session with a worrying ease and leaves the impression that ancient Greece was nothing but a glorified soap opera. Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven frankly, leave it in the dust. Here's hoping 300 rekindles the Greek pride.