Tries a little too hard...

Rating: 5/10 (1 November 2004)

One major problem that seems to face Hollywood adaptations of literary material in the last twenty years is a fundamental lack of respect for the tone of the source material. Recent Stephen King adaptations have tried to be family-friendly, The Lord Of The Rings was robbed of the scenes upon which its peculiar characteristic depends in favour of overlong battle sequences, and then you have Troy. Troy, being based upon The Iliad, has a lot to live up to, especially given that The Iliad and The Odyssey are considered such great landmarks of literature.
Where O'Brother, Where Art Thou? wore its loose relationship to The Odyssey on its sleeve and instead tried to present an answer to the question of how it would read were it written during America's so-called golden era, Troy tries to present itself as a dramatic and literal interpretation of The Iliad. It doesn't work in that sense. For one thing, it tries to tell years worth of events in a pace that implies mere months. It's almost as if modern filmmakers cannot even be bothered implying the passage of time.
Another major problem is in the casting. We truly have an international cast here, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. However, when you listen to the cast speak during this film, it becomes obvious in a hurry that the only member who has any Greek ancestry is, ironically, playing a Trojan. Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox don't even bother to hide their Irish or Scottish accents, while Brad Pitt often makes one wonder if he is about to tell us that the things we own end up owning us (ironically, a line that wouldn't have gone amiss here). Poor little Orlando Bloom looks utterly lost during most of the running time, and it becomes obvious at the end that he just cannot act without a bow in his hand. A new version of the action hero syndrome.
However, Troy also manages to get a few things right. The battle sequences are shot with a stable, steady camera that, while often too close for the audience to comfortably see what is happening, at least doesn't induce nausea. The actions of the characters doing the fighting actually make sense, too. Compared to Rohirrim charging the hundred-foot tall Mumakil during The Return Of The King, simple things like the Spartan warriors hiding behind the shields they join together are a welcome change.
Connie Nielsen and Diane Kruger get a decent shake as the feminine quotient of the film. Nielsen must be feeling quite angry that she wasn't even considered for an Oscar after Gladiator. Every scene she appears in, she seems to have a look on her face that seems to say "my career has tanked, and horsemouth won an Oscar?". If anything, she seems even more forceful than at the end of Gladiator. Kruger, on the other hand, gives a measured, soft performance that leaves the viewer in little doubt as to why Paris would risk provoking war for her.
I gave Troy a five out of ten. This is the same score I generally give to all films that appear reasonably good, but waste so much potential. Sure, it is worthy of a viewing, but in this market where a film comes out every week, this just isn't enough.