Troy is not completely unwatchable if taken as simply as a film, but if taken as representing the literary works of the Virgil and Homer, it is a dismal failure

Rating: 5/10 (12 August 2005)

The film is based predominantly on Homer's Iliad, although it takes cues from the Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. The screen play was written by David Benioff and falls amazingly short of its inspiration. The movie is full of sweeping changes from Homer's work. When one changes the work of a literary master, it would be hoped this would be for the better, to make a work more accessible to a general audience. In the case of Troy all it does is serve to confuse the issue and paint the Iliad as a love story, which most certainly was not.
Let us start with the literary inaccuracies that run so rampant throughout the film. It opens up with King Agamemnon at Thessaly. Achilles is to fight Boagrius (a completed fabricated character) to settle control of the nation. In this half hazard introduction we learn Achilles is the son of Thetis, a goddess. This is close to the only mention of the gods, a major force in the Iliad, in the entirety of the film. From this addition the film skips to Paris taking Helen from Sparta. Paris and Hector are depicted as having a deep love of one another, but even this simple connection is not accurate. Hector was angered by the actions of Paris and felt him a coward unworthy of being a prince. He did not protect Helen for Paris, he defended Troy from the Greeks.
Menelaus goes to Agamemnon for aid in retrieving Helen so he can "kill her with his own two hands" when he retrieves her. This could not be further from the literary reality. In the Odyssey one learns Helen returns to Menelaus after the fall of Troy and continues on as the Queen of Sparta. Not only does Menelaus not wish to kill Helen, he himself does not die. Of course, this is little fact is over looked when Paris meets Menelaus on the field of battle. The conflict between the two is accurate, Paris did run away (although this is with the assistance of Aphrodite), however Menelaus being killed by Hector is not. The very act of killing him would have been against the rules of engagement and are counter to the character of Hector.
Achilles is shown as removing himself from the battle when Agamemnon takes Briseis away from him. This is accurate; this slight is the reason for the anger of Achilles in the Iliad. However, Briseis is not an acolyte of Apollo, nor the cousin of Hector. She was a wife claimed as a prize in early fighting that Agamemnon claims as his own when he is forced to give up his own prize to avert a plague brought on the Greeks by Apollo. Making Briseis a cousin to Hector only served to muddle the plot. It also failed to show her connection with Achilles or Patroclus.
Patroclus is another character to suddenly find himself in a new family. He was never the cousin of Achilles; he was his dearest friend and comrade. He did manage to get himself killed, which was the turning point for Achilles rejoining the battle, but it was not an accident. Patroclus asked permission of Achilles to take his armor and lead the Myrmidons into battle. Achilles allowed his, even watching much of the battle from his ship. Hector knew he was fighting Patroclus and intended to kill him.
After killing Patroclus, Hector shows his wife how to escape the city. This never happened. In fact, she ends up being sold as a concubine and Hector's son is thrown from the walls of Troy.
In Troy, upon learning of the death of Patroclus, Achilles goes to the walls of the city and demands Hector come down and face him. In the poem Hector is caught outside of the walls of Troy because of his own hubris is not returning to the city in the face of his numerous victories.
When Achilles kills Hector he does drag the body, but he does this for more than a day. It is the twelve days he spends defiling the body that prove to dehumanize him and show how far he has fallen. It is this fall that allows for the catharsis at the end of the Iliad between Priam and Achilles. This catharsis is hinted at in Troy, but is never fully reached. Priam is stripped of his courage when he comes to Achilles in the film. Rather than risking his life and coming with a ransom for the body of Hector he just shows up in the tent. The act of Achilles offering him food and protection is skipped over. It is the conversation with Priam about his own father that moves Achilles to return the body. The entire point of Priam and Achilles together is lost.
Benioff obviously had a great love of the Trojans, if his portrayal of their characters versus that of the Greeks is any indication. He paints Agamemnon and Menelaus in a very bad light, gives Paris and Hector a great nobility and gives far too much screen time to Helen. Homer did a better job of remaining impartial and he was Greek.
Given his liberties, it is unsurprising that during the funeral of Hector (the actual ending place of the Iliad) the Greeks build the "Trojan Horse" to send in. This is drawn from the Aeneid, and even it did not describe a horse full of soldiers. The reality is this was most likely a siege engine used on the gates of Troy. Engines during this time could have been described as horse like. From this horse Achilles and other Greek soldiers pour out into the city. Achilles goes to save and dies dramatically in her arms after Paris shoots him (minus the aid of Apollo) through his ankle. Of course, this is after Briseis managed to kill Agamemnon (also not based in literary reality).