Not faithful to the source material but very entertaining!

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2005)

Troy was the first of the recent epic film wave (I'm not counting The Lord of the Rings) and it is by far the best. Alexander was too flawed, Kingdom of Heaven's protagonist was far too weak and King Arthur was... well King Arthur was just plain crap. Not only is the main protagonist of Troy very strong but the film seems much more polished than any of the two other films and the overall cast is only a few steps short of brilliant. Troy is as most people know based on The Illiad but only very superficially. Some of the characters from the book are used but overall the film is very different from the book and in my opinion it was probably for the better. Don't get me wrong the book is excellent but the God element would make the film way too complicating as the Gods would need to be introduced for it to make sense at all. Also the siege lasts about 10 years in the book but in the film it only lasts a couple of weeks and that was another thing which was probably necessary for dramatic purposes.
The cast is mainly very good. Brad Pitt is brilliant. He really conveyed the energy of the character, Achilles, very well. His sense of timing and overall presence is undeniable. He does an incredible job in the action sequences he is in and brings the menacing nature of Achilles very well to life. However, he also does a good job in the more intimate scenes where he seems to have great chemistry with Rose Byrne who plays Briseis. Eric Bana was the greatest surprise for me as he did an excellent job in bringing Hector to life. Like Brad Pitt he is brilliant both in the action scenes and emotional scenes. He matches the intensity of Pitt and this makes their final confrontation a true climax. Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson do excellent jobs with their characters as well and especially Cox who acts in a way that makes Agamemnon seem very devious. Two thumbs up. Peter O'Toole is great and does a seemingly impossible feat in stealing a scene from Brad Pitt. Where the casting fails, however is in that of Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger. Orlando was never a good actor but in Troy he doesn't even look the part like he does in The Lord of the Rings. He spends his time with a pathetic apologetic look on his face. Its pretty much the same with Kruger. Their chemistry is heinous. The worst I have ever seen. There is absolutely no spark whatsoever between them. I've seen better chemistry between two rocks. Aside from the two aforementioned the cast is very good. One last actor worth mentioning is Sean Bean who produces a very likable character in Odysseus.
The action is overall very well done and feels very epic. The combat scenes with Pitt and Bana are very well done and you really get a sense of the different combat styles used. Pitt has a very refined way of fighting. It almost looks like a dance whereas Bana's style seems more like he taught himself and thus looks nowhere near as graceful and this kind of difference in style is very appealing to me. There is another character, Ajax, who is all about brute strength just to name another. There are a few epic battles where the computer effects work great. The effects aren't brilliant like in LotR but they are decent and convincing enough. The true climax, however, is in the final battle between Hector and Achilles which is one of the best choreographed fights I have ever seen. Overall the action is very satisfactory and entertaining. Kudos to the director.
The story is well written and much of the dialog is both very sharp and witty and the complete refrain from contemporary expressions was in my opinion a nice touch. Instead the writers came up with other expressions like: "You sack of wine". which I found was highly entertaining. The story progresses in a satisfactory manner but after the climactic battle between Hector and Achilles the film does lose some steam. Overall I thought it was a good idea to leave out the whole story with the gods and instead focus on reality was a good thing as the including the gods would have made the film too confusing and far too long.
All in all Troy is a very good film and aside from a few glitches in the casting the film is nothing short of excellent and definitely a must-see.
8/10