Not only the Horse is wooden

Rating: 2/10 (24 July 2005)

Where do you start with this dog? First of all it is pretty pleasing to the eye, with lots of action & spectacle. But that's about it. This is History as viewed through the lens of a Schwarztnegger movie.
For a start Achilles never entered the walls of Troy, he died outside. Also Agamemnon lived well beyond the battle well before the fall of Troy. There's lots besides that, including the usual rubbish of sword play. Has anyone EVER tried to stick even the sharpest sword into someone? I was lucky that I never had to bayonet anyone, but I've spoken to people who have & they all told me that you just can't go up to someone & go "HAH!" & have a blade go right through. Don't forget you've got to add in the protection of armour & the fact that the ancient Greek blades wouldn't have been as sharp or tough as modern examples. We know from Roman chronicles that the legionnaires weren't so stupid as to have their swords bounce off the enemy, they went for the legs, preferably the ankles, to drop your opponent where you could cut his throat or just let them bleed to death. The fight sequences shown in "Troy" are, as a result, totally fatuous.
There's lots of sneering, grunting, clunky dialogue & even worse acting. This has to be the Pitts for Brad, I've never seen him so one dimensional, it is as if he didn't want to be there at all. Brian Cox goes a long way to rescuing the characterisations on screen with his Agamemnon & Sean Bean does what he can with the role of Odysseus (a role so truncated as to be almost erased from the story altogether) but the supporting cast of various sorts just get by as if going by-the-numbers.
Peter O'Toole makes a watchable Priam, but his age seems to get the better of him, his sonorous repetition of "The Gods" this & "The Gods" that seldom allow him to rise above the mediocre. However that is something of an achievement give the standard of the rest of the cast.
Diane Kruger as Helen is eye candy, end of story. Orlando Bloom shows promise as Paris, but the part seldom allows him to develop. However I do like the fact that he shows barely disguised fear when entering into battle, which is probably something closer to the truth than the romaticised tales handed down by the Greek poets who recorded these events at the time.
Of course the big sticking point with anything dealing with Greek history is the touchy subject of homosexuality. The Greeks placed such a high value on female virginity that recreational sex had to find an outlet somewhere & man-on-man action was the only alternative, assuming you had no captive women to be your sex slaves. The latter is clearly mentioned, but not shown, the former doesn't even appear by inference, but Greek records are clear that this was a normal & every day affair. However, as we have already seen, Hollywood has little respect for the truth or accuracy (which is why such awful tripe as U517 got made).
Finally the CGI is often obvious & clunky, especially when the large formation so Greeks or Tojans are shown marching. I've seen better animations in Role Playing computer games. This is definitely not up to the superb standard of CGI in The Lord of the Rings. But then if it was smooth & natural it would seem out of place amongst the creaking script & the clunky acting.
Chug lots of beer & settle down with a pizza if you want to make this an enjoyable experience. If you've any previous knowledge of Greek history then avoid this or you'll throw up, no matter how much beer you've had.