Excellent movie

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2004)

It's undoubtedly true that Troy is a movie with in the first place a huge budget (I heard something like 180 million dollars) and that it owes a lot to the tradition of big spectacle C. C. DeMille. Nevertheless, I think it is an excellent movie, with an intrinsic depth that is comparable to "Gladiator". I don't care if the story follows Homeros' illiad faithfully or not. Without doubt, Homeros "invented" a lot of things in his Troy story too (it even can't be proven that there is some historical truth to it; except for the fact that Troy has really existed as an ancient city), so it's surely good enough that the movie is only inspired on the Illiad. The scenes are impressive, the costumes are adequate, the overall acting performances are very good to excellent. Only Diana Kruger as Helen really disappointed me: she plays without any inner conviction, her performance was terribly insipid. Achilles and Hector convinced me both as true heroes; both heroes of the sword for sure, but with totally different personalities. Some battle scenes, especially the "main" one between Achilles and Hector, are breath taking and all the more impressive in that they are "real" (well, almost completely real that is). There is a lot to be discovered beyond the surface of this movie (was also the case with "Gladiator"). Despite what some critics said (where are the good movie critics nowadays?), the performance of Brad Pitt as Achilles was not one dimensional at all. Achilles surely appears as an egotist (which he also is in Homeros' Illiad itself), but at the same time as a fairly complex person, with a couple of very good brains. Moreover, his personality evolves during the movie, with two encounters as driving force behind his evolution: the one with Briseïs (another good acting performance of Troy, realized by Rose Byrne) and the one with Priam (an excellent Peter O'Toole). I surely also loved the character of Hector, but didn't we all? As to Paris, well, he surely acted foolishly and irresponsible, but at the same time, his love for Helen seems to have been genuine (although this aspect isn't rendered convincingly in the movie, also due to the weak performance by Diane Kruger). There is a lot more to be said about this movie, but for now, I conclude with the statement I started with: this is an excellent movie, the best I saw this year until now.