DIRECTOR: Wolfgang Peterson
[Sigh] It just ain't an epic without Charlton Heston. Admittedly, Heston had his share of crappy movies (Ben-Hur and The Greatest Story Ever Told come to mind), but even when the stories were dumb and the dialogue impossibily grandiose, Charlton Heston's acting ability, that honesty and dignity in his performance, still made them worth watching. Perhaps most importantly, though, Heston never had to fake a quasi-british accent to make him sound more "noble." Charlton Heston didn't need to, because he had this apparently rare ability to act noble. If Wolfgang Peterson's Troy had been made 45 years ago when Heston would have been available for casting, this movie might actually have turned out to be not that bad. It certainly has every other hallmark of a Hollywood epic: impossibly elevated dialogue about honor, glory, fame, war and love; expansive, big-budget sets, a cast of (CGI) extras larger than the population of a small country, and an extravagant orchestral score laced with the obligatory ululating female vocalist to give it that "exotic" touch. Then there's also the collection of high-falutin' random accents afflicting everyone in the cast, including miniskirted boy-toy Brad Pitt (Achilles).
Question: when did Hollywood decide that every ancient historical character needs to have a British accent? I find it particularly amusing when movies set during the Roman Empire (Gladiator, for example) do this, considering that the Brits were little more than savage Anglo-Saxons praying at Stonehenge at that time. Okay, tangent done.
"Hmm, I just may BE too sexy for my shirt..."
In all these ways, Troy is a classic example of its genre, and why Hollywood had stopped making them. As it stands, it's a carefully crafted museum piece, a perfect replica of a useless antique, gleaming with all its modern construction, but completely souless. Troy's storytelling problems are no worse than those of the aforementioned classic Heston pictures. The plot is parchment-thin, centering on the ensuing war between Troy and Sparta when Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) seduces Spartan queen Helen (Diane Kruger) and whisks her away, right under the nose of Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), her rightful husband. Warrior Achilles and his mercenary Myrmidons join Sparta in the fight against Troy, whose legions are led by Paris' older brother, Hector (Eric Bana). That's really all the setup anyone needs to follow the action, but the filmmakers obviously thought differently, gumming it up with pointless and convoluted politics between a group of greybeards with impossible names that I dare anyone to try and keep straight.
The endless discussions of courage and honor and legend make the Spartans and Trojans both sound like overly introspective Klingons, and, just as a treat to female Pitt fans, Achilles gets to show off his tight hiney and his sensitive side in a couple of angsty moments. Nothing very spectacular about any of that (including the butt shots, which only hint and never reveal--thank you, MPAA!), but Pitt, Bana and Bloom fail to bring anything interesting to their roles. They may as well have been the same character. Attempts to give these macho men emotional depth are cliched to the max--Hector has a wife and a baby son (awwww!), Paris is sweetly head-over-heels for Helen in a blatant, Romeo/Juliet relationship (so cute!) and hard-nosed Achilles discovers his destiny as the protector(??) of Appolyian virginity ("Here, let me tenderly wipe that blood off your face that splattered there when I brutually slaughtered your would-be rapists."). It's obvious when the filmmakers are trying to tug on the heartstrings, and it doesn't work. Ultimately, nobody has any reason to care what happens to any of these people. I had lost
interest--literally--fifteen minutes into the 2 1/2 hour oddessy (or Iliad, in this case!).
"What? What do you want? What'd I miss? What?! Stop looking at me!"
So the plot is minimal and the actors aren't very good. Funny, I've seen lots of movies with these same two problems that were still pretty good. Some of them have even been huge box-office successes (e.g., the last two Star Wars prequels). So what makes Troy any worse? Glad you asked. Look at the Star Wars franchise. Or the James Bond series. What is the one redeeming quality both of these money-makers share? They have really neat-o action and special effects. Why was Gladiator so successful, when its script and acting were relatively sub-par (Academy Awards notwithstanding)? Because it was gory and exciting. Troy has none of these qualities--which is absolutely inexcusable in an action movie. The fight scenes show zero creativity in their choreography, which is bad enough, but this problem is then exacerbated by the lackluster cinematography. Wide-shot, close-up, wide-shot, close-up, pan. It's like watching a sitcom or the evening news. There's no attempt to make it dramatic or exciting. It's the same stuff everybody's already seen before, and it isn't even done with the same flair.
Basically, there's no reason to see this movie. There's no "moral to the story"--heck, there's
barely even a story--and the other parts that can compensate for that--character and action--are
conspicuously absent. Troy is boring, start to finish and, in my opinion, a complete waste of time and rental fees.
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