forgettable

Rating: 6/10 (18 May 2004)

I wouldn't expect much more from a summer movie. Troy starts out at a stumble, with bad dialect and clunky acting as it tries to move towards the battle scenes. In the first forty-five minutes, everyone seems to be in an off-day as far as acting goes. Sean Bean alone seems to know what he's doing, but perhaps that's because he had relatively short screen time at the start.
Things did get better as the movie went on, although it suffered from some odd directing choices (such as the slow zoom in on Priam as he sits on his throne; this shot ruined the intense feeling and came off as laughable) and a thoroughly bad soundtrack that sounds like it was done on a keyboard. Brad Pitt does alright as the edited Achilles, who is more redeemable to modern audiences than his childish and prideful predecessor (although his line about immortality upon landing on the beaches was difficult to swallow); Orlando Bloom doesn't have to do much more than stand around looking pretty and worried; Eric Bana is by far the most honorable and sympathetic of anyone in the movie, and he pulls it off admirably; Peter O'Toole does well even though he gets his fair share of bad lines; and Brian Cox does some serious scenery chewing here. He's more of a Disney villain than anything. But still there would be some difficult dialect that would make the audience either smirk or cringe.
Overall, the action scenes were the best part of the movie, especially the huge throwdown between Achilles and Hector, which was intense and well done.
I don't agree much with how they've mishandled the story, however, and tried to base it on the historical version of Troy (which no one knows). The removal of the gods I can understand, actually, since the characters themselves are interesting enough, but it's the misuse of the characters that gets to me. Numerous people, such as Ajax, Menelaus, Paris, and Priam either don't die when they should, or die when they shouldn't, and all for the wrong reasons. Achilles comes off as too sympathetic for my liking; even though he is supposed to be the image of valor and nobility, these traits don't overcome his childish, impetuous pride, which results in the deaths of thousands of troops.
But since this is just a mediocre movie, I'm alright with it. By next summer, no one will remember much about it, or care to. The characters will live on, as the movie predicts, but the movie itself will not.