Overall Rating
  Awesome: 22.4%
Worth A Look: 25%
Average: 21.1%
Pretty Bad: 14.29%
Total Crap: 17.21%
13 reviews, 230 user ratings
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| Troy |
by Erik Childress
"I Told Them We’ve Already Got One"
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The end credits for the new film Troy read that it was “inspired by Homer’s The Iliad.” "Inspired" is the term one uses instead of “based on” when filmmakers take extraordinary liberties with the original text to fit their own mold. Knowing only the Cliffs Notes version of the epic poem, but still quite familiar with the tale, I was not about to condemn any Hollywood production for condensing. Even The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter found it impossible to include every syllable. What is, not isn’t, there in Troy is of far greater concern since it is certainly anything but inspired.Brimming with dialogue of a modernistic twinge and a dash of homoeroticism, Troy has all the urgency of a TV miniseries not good enough for sweeps week. Title cards put into place that King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) has conquered just about all of Greece with more than a little help from the “world’s greatest warrior”, Achilles (Brad Pitt). The golden-haired sword-for-hire has no loyalty to the King, only fighting for the chance his name will live on for centuries to come. His spear-throwing prowess and signature move of jumping into the air for stabbing attempts make him a prime choice in a game of Mortal Kombat.
When one of the waifish princes of Troy, Paris (Orlando Bloom) secretly stashes his love, Helen the Queen of Sparta (Diane Kruger) for the trip home (in a scene with all the depth of an infant hiding a cookie), King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) isn’t about to take it lying down. He enlists brother Agamemnon in his quest to retrieve her, which he takes as an opportunity to finally wage war with the Trojans. Achilles is too busy…ahem…swordfighting with his “cousin” to lead the King’s army until his mother (Julie Christie, in one scene) and Odysseus (Sean Bean) remind him of his place in history.
Hastily set-up in its first 40 minutes, the film wastes no time in getting us to war and the storming of the beach of Troy. There’s a detachment to the proceedings that it can never overcome however and subsequently lends itself to borderline hilarity which it finds itself crossing now and again.
David Benioff’s adaptation is laced with the dialogue of a high school drama minor who never studied the classical works. When one of the King’s men says “if we turn back now, we’ll lose all credibility” it has all the poignancy of a journalist harping on some artist selling-out. How about some poetry to the language?
REWRITE: “If we turn a blind face, the four winds will spread our cowardice to every corner of Greece.”
That’s a centuries-old epic I can buy, not “I want to see my son grow old and have girls chasing him.” The film needs “my eyes want to look upon my son, bathing in all the flavor that life has to offer,” not “May the Gods be with you.” That last line is not made up and one which even George Lucas would admit sucked.
None of these words translate into comfortable line readings for any of the actors. Pitt is out of his element anyway, having the look and holding his own in the battle scenes, but doesn’t possess the otherworldlyness that Achilles is supposed to represent. The characters of the Gods may have been completely eliminated in the translation, but that doesn’t mean their creations need be stripped completely of their representation.
There’s absolutely no passion inherit in Achilles’ relationship with the Trojan slave girl (and relative of the two princes) leading to a silly exercise as he combs the burning city calling her name. Neither is there any fervor between Paris and Helen, which you would think is rather crucial considering an entire WAR is being pledged because of them. Her face may have launched a thousand ships, but this version presents her as just another anonymous Maxim cover.
And when was the last time you could honestly cop to Peter O’Toole giving an awful performance? I’m aware that he was the bomb in Phantoms, yo, but here he is bug-eyeing his baby blues to look at approaching armies, to watch his son fighting, to watch his other son fighting, to look concerned at council meetings, etc…etc…you get the picture. Any Oscar consideration he is given would be an affront to his entire body of work.
Only Eric Bana gives a performance of any note. His conflict between protecting his brother and his country gives him more dimension than the previews trying to pinpoint him as some villain to Pitt’s hero. Besides, anyone who can maintain his chops saying goodbye to his family while Achilles is screaming “HECTOR!!! HECTOR!!!!!” outside the city walls like some Queer Eye version of Streetcar Named Desire, deserves his props. Change Achilles relationship to Patrocylus all you want but we all know that Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift had “cousins” too.
It’s hard to be outdone by a USA Network miniseries, but Troy has achieved that dubiousness. Sure, it’s got grand sets, a couple pretty costumes, a helluva cast and sweeping crane shots but there’s just nothing decidedly epic about the entire production. The mano-y-mano combat scenes are solid but the futility and horror of war never resonates. James Horner’s dull score just gives up for the final scenes to make way for his standard archived material. Three Braveheart cast members, two Lord of the Rings, plus an Excalibur and a Lawrence of Arabia does not a classic make.Clearly no one was out to make the definitive Homer here. “Say, that’s a nice horse.” “Owwww, my heel.” (I’m paraphrasing of course.) It ranks about 157th on the all-time battle-themed flick list and probably last on the Trojan War film list. If Troy was made to be a reflection of our own times (warmonger King looking for excuses puts a face on his reasoning to go to battle), it’s lost in a sandstorm of directionless mediocrity. Director Wolfgang Petersen had a thousand to choose from and missed every boat completely.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=9579&reviewer=198
originally posted: 05/14/04 14:19:57
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USA
14-May-2004 (R)
DVD: 04-Jan-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
13-May-2004 (MA)
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