Somewhat shallow, clumsy affair

Rating: 6/10 (26 October 2005)

I've just watched Troy, long after it's release and after hearing a variety of comments on it from terrible to exceptional. It stands amongst some serious competition and cannot help but be compared to Gladiator, Braveheart and other such battle-filled epics. The plot is well put together, not too complicated and somewhat familiar to everyone, particularly Helen of Troy and the Trojan Horse concept. It is disappointing then that the two above are not so special in the film. Helen's beauty is mentioned by some characters, but her character is never really fleshed out and contradictory in her spontaneous fleeing with Paris and then her subsequent world weary 'wisdom' when she says she finds naive Paris 'so young'. The Horse is none too magnificent, a dull, smaller than I expected creation with about 10 Greeks in it. And it appears so late in the film, it is almost forgotten. The battles were also a disappointment after such shocking shows in Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, Gladiatior, The Patriot and so on. Some of the individual fighting looked clumsy and awkward, perhaps in an attempt to convey their heavy weapons and armour, but I think it could have been choreographed better. Only Pitt and Bana appear to have had well practiced routines. The acting is a mixed bag, Pitt sports a perplexed look for the half the film, his fame hungry Achilles maybe a little unsure of himself, making him impossible to love or hate either way. He is given too much time in the film, too many brooding shots, too sentimental a last scene. The film could have been called Achilles and it would have made more sense, such was the director's apparent fascination with the tanned, toned hero/anti-hero. Bana was a revelation to me, I'm not a fan but he brought depth and gravity to Hector, as a warrior, son, brother, husband and father, all the responsibilities on him. For this I think his final fight scene with Achilles too short and not worthy of his performance. Peter O'Toole was excellent, a proud but broken King with much dignity. Overall, a little too long, too chopped into sections of battle and storytelling with some over-the-top CGI moments of thousands of ships and marching men. It is worth a look but not the best it could have been.