Troy
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen
Written by: David Benioff (based on Homer’s Illiad)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, Peter O’Toole

The Trojan war lasted over 10 years, a bitter struggle between two powerful armies that was supposedly incited by the infidelity of the most beautiful woman in the world. The movie Troy seems to last almost as long, and yet in the world of the movie it compresses the events into a couple of weeks. It may have been based loosely on a mythological tale, but there is historical truth beneath it too, and one of the major reasons why Troy does not work as a movie is because it can’t keep its facts straight. At the same time however, it tries to fabricate realism in moments where fiction is needed most.

Right from the start the film has trouble finding its footing and feels like it was pieced together by a handful of different writers. In truth it was adapted by one Mr. David Benioff (writer of The 25th Hour, both in novel and screenplay form), who seems ill-fitted for such a task. As a result, he steers the material towards the only thing he has experience with: gloomy human drama. He removes the Greek gods from the story completely, and takes a few other liberties with Homer’s Illiad, the end result of which is confusing and muddled.

During the course of its trying-too-hard-to-be-epic 3 hour length, Troy swerves from corny and predictable, to stirring and dramatic, to senseless and indifferent, and somehow leaves you staring blankly at the screen by the time the credits roll. This is a movie where you feel like brain cells are being killed as you watch, but just when you feel an urge to completely tune out, it manages to draw you back in for a few minutes.

There’s little doubt as to what this movie wanted to be — a kick-ass historical/fantasy epic on the scale of Gladiator and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Unfortunately there was more to those movies than big names and a big budget, and it is pretty damn tough to measure up. Director Wolfgang Petersen tries his best to assimilate the styles of Ridley Scott and Peter Jackson but the scope of the movie is a little beyond a guy who directed such braindead action flicks as Air Force One and The Perfect Storm. He pours on slow mo and an overwrought score in an attempt to force emotion, he overuses CG effects like a crutch, and the battle scenes tend to cop out by cutting back and forth quickly without really showing anything. He just does not seem to have an eye for quality or consistency.

The cast is surprisingly solid in this movie, although some of the faux British accents are a little distracting. There are a lot of pretty faces involved, but they are pretty faces with reliable track records. LOTR alumni Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean both turn in performances that were pretty good inspite of the fluff their characters are given to work with. Bloom makes a great sissy as Paris, and one wishes that Bean’s Odysseus had been given more to do. Veteran Peter O’Toole raises the film’s potential greatly every time he is on screen as old King Priam, and his scene with Achilles towards the end is one of those momentary lapses where the movie actually seems to have emotion.

Eric Bana carries a large chunk of the movie on his shoulders as Prince Hector. I was a little unsure how he would fit into a movie like this but it turns out that his character was the most real and the most likeable. In fact, Prince Hector felt to me like the focal point and the real hero of this movie, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why ultimately it comes up feeling empty. Because as we all know, Achilles is the true hero in the original story, but he becomes an odd man out in this film. Strangely enough, the actor who the movie was supposed to revolve around actually ends up contributing the least to it. Although Pitt has proven on numerous occasions that he can act (or at least generate memorable characters), it was hard to shake the feeling that he is little more than eye candy in Troy. The character of Achilles is not a complicated one but Benioff does not know how to handle him in the story. We never really identify with him or learn what makes him tick. We see him brooding all the time and yet care little about his fate. Perhaps the problem is that he is supposed to be a heroic warrior, protected by the gods, and yet in this telling of the tale no one seems to like him much and there are no such thing as gods to protect him.

The basic story in Troy is one that many of us should know, whether from reading in school or through indirect references, but it does have some contain some cool twists and will still offer surprises for even the most well-researched scholar. Of course, once the “Trojan horse” enters the picture there is not much left to guess at. The movie lumbers to a clumsy, uninteresting end that forces redemption and resolution against all sense of reason.

At some level, I’m sure everyone knows what to expect from a movie like Troy. Some of the action is impressive, and the movie has a few moments of excellence. The problem is that Troy fails to elevate itself above the level of a typical Hollywood action flick, and in some cases falls even below those mediocre standards. There is no art here, no message, and no real point. History, mythology and Brad Pitt buffs may find bits and pieces to enjoy, but even they are likely to be disappointed. Enter at your own risk. — Sean

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