good action, bad screenplay

Rating: Null/10 (21 May 2004)

SPOILERS.
When given an incredible story such as the Iliad, Hollywood would benefit greatly from the Lord of the Rings example. The action was a lesson learned, but try sticking to the story/characters. Troy fails to capture any details in the poem of the Iliad. I have no qualms with the acting.
"Akhilleus"/"Odysseus" is Greek, "Achilles"/"Ulysses" is Roman; of course they use Achilles and Odysseus. A very picky complaint, but adequately illustrates that the makers bastardized the greatest epic of western literature, and spared no expense to ignore the facts. But how about major adherences?
Every complaint I've heard would have been fixed had they stuck to the material at hand. Flat characters, overdone love scenes, length, etc. are a result of complete neglect of the Iliad. Clearly the worst thing is why start the film before the war starts and end with the burning of Troy, when the book starts 9 years into the war and finishes before Troy is burned? Was there not enough epic material to cover...can any movie capture an epic in 2 1/2 hours and keep the audience's attention? The result is 45 minutes of unnecessary pre-war set up, leaving the film with 2 hours to cover a 9 year war and resolve character issues. Of course Hollywood just solves this by making the war two weeks and two minor battles.
Hollywood has two problems with this story. First, the love scenes are a background theme while the story is about Achilles' anger. Worse yet, Achilles hardly plays a role for most of the book. This will not do for a summer epic movie. Hollywood must make love the forefront and one hero stand out. That's Hollywood's other problem...there are far too many characters in the Iliad who are described in detail only to die. Granted, a movie can't spare that, so why did they span the time frame beyond the book?
I'll never know. They could have made up their own story set in Greece with all this glorified action, and saved a great story such as the Iliad for someone who has respect.
Someone said they should do the "Odyssey" now with Sean Bean. Yea, I'd love to see that. Too bad they killed Agamemnon though in Troy. He plays an important role in the Homer's Odyssey, but I guess they don't care much for details anyway.
I was worried they'd ruin the book, and they did. It's an o.k. movie even if you haven't read it.