For the Under-Read and Easily Impressed

Rating: Null/10 (18 June 2004)

For those who had no difficulty believing that an underground organization focused on overthrowing oppression would want/need Keanu Reeves' MIND to save the world, "Troy" will overwhelm you in much the same manner as shiny new bling-blings at the mall.
It would be amusing to comment on the enormous number of "reviewers" here who readily admit to never having read Homer's "Iliad." It stops being funny when it's clear that the film did not merely leave them uninspired to do so, they're rather proud of having no intention of reading it.
When it comes to writing about movies, if you're going walk that walk and talk that talk, sooner or later you're going to be asked to know what you're writing about. When that happens, it's not a good defense to cite that since the director of "Troy" obviously didn't read much of the original material or understand it very well, why should you?
"Troy" trivializes mythology the way Disney trivialized "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." It's an epic all right; all the money spent is there to be seen. But what was it for? So you could look at Brad Pitt's impression of Tom Cruise's acting style? (He should have chosen a better example for himself than the old "Cut to shot of Pitt shaking his hair; medium shot of Pitt posing heroically; cut to close up of Pitt looking far off, deep in thought." You can piece together a performance out of that confetti, and it makes less demands on someone with presence but not much else.)
Peter O'Toole, Julie Christie, and a host of good actors show up threatening to bring some class to the proceedings, but the makers of "Troy" were even less interested in class than they were in depicting the essence of "The Iliad," which, after all, laments the waste of lives during war and asks us to reflect on our notions of heroes.
Brad Pitt is blonde and athletic again in this picture, but he doesn't possess the spirit of what makes a hero. He's just the rough "good guy," Achilles dumbed-down for the I-hate-to-read crowd so they won't have trouble figuring out for whom they're supposed to root. Diane Kruger's Helen is comely and since she's one of the five or six only women around town we are less likely to wonder why she's such a catch.
"Troy" is like an expensive Steve Reeves movie where the dubbing was synchronized.
Having said that, there does remain one truly thought-provoking element of "Troy" and that is how the film makers could manage to expose square miles of naked male flesh so often but omit every homosexual overtone or reference in an ancient Greek myth. Now THAT is something to ponder.