*** Official TROY Review Thread

I saw “Troy” earlier this week and I must say that I was absolutely blown away. This is, in every sense, a true old-fashioned epic with many huge battle scenes rivaling those of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Whether it is hordes of Trojan soldiers against hordes of Greek soldiers, or one man against another, each battle sequence was done outstandingly well. I felt as though Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Brian Cox, and Peter O’Toole did exceptionally well with their characters. I did have a bit of a problem seeing Orlando Bloom revisit Legolas towards the end of the film, but other than that, the acting was superb and full of emotion.

I believe James Horner did a fantastic job with the score. I rushed to get the soundtrack on Tuesday. I’m even more impressed to learn that he only had 2 weeks to compose this. Yes, there are a few similarities with his other scores, and it calls attention to itself on more than one occasion, but in my opinion, his score served the film well and is a great listen to bring back images from the film. 9 out of 10.

 

If movie-making was an Olympic sport, Troy would thus far get my gold medal for the ‘best summer holiday movie of 2004’.

While the film did take its time to set sail, it is from that point in the story arc that Petersen, Pitt, et al… takes command of the movie/screen and from those spectacular images of Agamemnon’s 1,000 ship fleet spread across the Aegen sea and onwards, I was hooked.

Although I wasn’t too convinced with the performances from Bloom or Bana, the rest of the supporting cast gave terrific performances from Bean, Byrne , O’Toole, and even Brian Cox who had a few sinister lines such as ”What!?! I didn’t touch her. I left her with the men”.

But the movie truly belongs to Pitt who gives such a commanding performance that Troy would’ve not been at all that great of a movie as it is without his presence or his talents. He seems to have that knack of making most of the characters he plays and elevates it into a memorable affair.

Troy is what the summer movies are all about. And it is meant to be experienced on the big screen.

 

Saw this tonight. Good, but not great. Perhaps I will see this again but it felt kind of long for me. I like epic style movies too. Something was missing for me in this one. Surprisingly, the best performance was Eric Bana's role as Hector.

The battle sequences are very good. Some are terrific. the ones that really work elevate the film. The Achilles vs. Hector duel is the best of the film.

I may have been expecting too much...although I didn't expect Brad Pitt to deliver the home run here. He seems like a nice guy and at times can be really good in films. He's good here but some of the dialogue delivery or dialogue in general at times comes across forced.

Again, the battle sequences are really good.

This one is hard to rate, but for now I will give

out of

 

Eh.

I can count the really good things in this movie on one hand -- namely, Eric Bana, the one on one fight scenes, Rose Byrne and the production design. Hey look, I have a finger to spare.

The bad... jeez... the dialog was hideous, so bad, so laughable that most of the actors just couldn't make anything out of it other than to sound stupid. The score was just awful -- leaden, obvious, and that keening yelping vocal cut right through my skull. And they kept pounding the themes over and over again. Yeah, I get it -- Achilles wants glory and Agamemnon is power hungry, and etc. You don't have to tell me five fricken' times. Subtlety was not used in making any of this film.

And I guess that's where this film really falls short. It's not smart, it's really obvious, and it does not challenge you in any way (other than to spot the many ways in which they diverged from the Illiad). Then again, it's not bad... just... eh.

 

I enjoyed it, but I felt it lacked something overall.

Maybe it was lack of true character development, or the script (too obvious with everything), or the score (bleh), but I know it was something. I never felt like I connected with any of the characters other than Bana and a few others. Just did not have that umph that Gladiator gave me, or that jolt that really got me involved (did have a better 1 on 1 fight though).

But still an enjoyable movie.

 

This filmed surprised me with its pacing, for a film that's longer than Gladiator, it felt much more brisk and economical.

Brad Pitt took a bit getting used to as Achilles, but as the film progressed, I settled into his take on the character. Orlando Bloom and newcomer Diana Kruger were outclassed in the acting department by the rest of the cast who were overall pretty good, even newcomer Rose Byrne. I admit to wondering how green Eric Bana would get when he showed anger. Heh.

Watching an interpretation of Homer's "The Iliad" with a big budget was pretty cool, even though the screenplay played loose with the timeline, compressing it to keep up the dramatic tension. Is the film short on character development? Maybe, not distractingly so. Enough of the different angles by which the participants in the drama/war were presented to understand the motivations (though a couple were hammered home a few times too many).

Otherwise, an entertaining enough film to sit through at the theaters, especially with a running time over 2.5 hours.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.

 

½ (out of four) recommended with reservations.

Troy is a film that is bursting at the seams to let out the greatness inside. And how could this particular story not? The problem is that at different times the film is hamstrung by some aspect or another, not often more than one at a time, but enough that the bad moments sour the good. Sometimes the dialogue is terrible, and sometimes it just needed trimming by the editor, sometimes the direction is just off, and sometimes the actors (pretty much exclusively Pitt and Bloom) give inept deliveries (this could also be an editing/directing problem, but it's just inconsistent enough to suspect the actor).

In all 80% of the movie is great, maybe even four star material. The story is wonderful, and the characterizations are just at the point of achieving real depth. Unfortunately there's not the exposition to stablish Paris as a wenchmonger weakling prince more interested in the soft things of life than its hard edges. Or Hector, how he is forged into one of the greatest heroes ever, yet conflicted and a man who desires peace for his home house and family. Achilles and Agamemnon we get that exposition in a brief scene--but alone, this scene feels pointless, as yet another way to glory in the exults of Achilles achievements. the scene is effective at what it is meant to accomplish, but in the greater context it feels out of place. And the 'character development' for Achilles feels like that, as though it is tacked on as an afterthought. He needed more time with Briseis, or he needed a line like, "women... men take by force what they can't earn with words" (okay so my dialogue is just as awful (actually that'd be the sort of line Odyssius could say).

The bad thing was that by the time the (small) crowd started groaning, they were groaning through scenes with excellent dialogue, delivery and acting, but the lead in to the good scenes (and good part of the movie) was full of sporadic awful dialogue and flat readings--the audience just took a while to catch up. The same thing happened in Van Helsing, the worst is at the beginning but the audience is taken out of the film by that, and the film never really gets a chance to reengross the audience because the artifice is apparent and the spell broken.

The score was the only thing consistently bad, three themes (including moaning choir) and a tacked on out of tone hideous song. James Horner wrote my favorite score (Legends of the Fall) but man he dropped the ball here with a rush job that is forced and awful (the editing in of it is pretty damn jolting in its own right, and the score on teh Achilles/hector battle just pissed me off before I shut off noticing it.

Eric Bana was excellent, the girl playing Briseis (Rose soemthing?) was at his level. Brad Pitt mugged for the camera a lot in his solo scenes, but when paired with another actor (not the silly lad playing Patrolcus or the grunts playing the Mermidons) he does some astonishing work that reminds us why he is so highly regarded, and why he'll eventually win something for something. Peter OToole and Brian Cox own their roles so perfectly that its a shame they don't have larger parts. There's the potential for greatness in the Odysseus character, too bad most audiences won't remember him or know who he is amidst the Achilles-fest. Ajax was done absolutely right. Paris I liked the interpretation and didn't like Orlando Bloom, very rarely did he get a moment right (it seeems that there's good reason he was mostly silent in LOTR). I was saddened to see Aeneus thrown away but you can't have everything. Helen is the ultimate Maguffin, it'd have been more interesting if we'd never seen 'the face that launched a thousand ships' but kept her out of the film even more, only showing her from the back, or hooded since she's pointless anyway, a catalyst.

It's too bad there's really nothing in the way of how leadership, brotherhood and warfare affect our humanity and affect humanity. Then again that's definitely not in the text explicitly, but it's sorta embedded in how we understand the world. Achilles and Hector just assume that their presence is absolutely necessary to the utter win or loss of either side but things don't work like that. celebrity or no, soldiers who are morale boosters have a limiting affect in battle on those around them, and leaders tend to have their effects limited to the downtime between fighting--so instead both come across as arrogant pricks so full of their own heorism/legend they can't really escape it. But this is not an issue that really affects my reception of the film, but it's a place that the film could have gone with, and I shouldn't have watched Part VII of Band of Brothers before Troy.


Adam

 

Troy is the latest sword-and-sandal motion picture to come out in grand scale. But unlike its predecessors, Braveheart and Gladiator, a bigger budget does not necessarily equate to a better film.

Wolfgang Petersen indulges us with not a handful but numerous sweeping aerial photography that highlights today’s computer graphic image technology. He relies on that same formula he used in The Perfect Storm to dazzle his audience. Twenty years ago, I would have gone gaga over this but Mr. Petersen is two decades behind the times in impressing today’s audiences. Simply showcasing cgi on the big screen amounts to nothing more than just pageantry.

And pageantry is what this film is all about – beautiful set pieces, well-known actors in larger than life roles, and well-chiseled male bodies (and yes, a few shots of Brad Pitt’s naked bottoms) to attract that certain demographic who normally would not go for this kind of film.

Most of the characters here exist in their own little world with very little emotional resonance. At the heart of the film is also its biggest problem – Achilles. This character, played by Brad Pitt, is all over the place and cannot commit to whether he’s supposed to be good or bad. For such an integral and central character, he flip-flops most of the time at the whip of his sword. How about taking a position and run with it? In the end, the filmmakers decided to take the middle of the road approach with this character by giving him a love interest so as not to alienate him from the audience – a not so very wise choice in my view.

One battle scene during a night attack provides some level excitement, otherwise, its really hard to get too excited about anything else especially in the one on one fights such as the one between Achilles and Prince Hector (Eric Bana) when obviously, most of the work is done by stuntmen. Additionally, the women characters are given very little to do except to say the line, “No one dies for me”, more than once. (Someone should have checked the screenplay.) Further, Orlando Bloom gets to revisit the part he played in The Lord of The Rings, which makes me wonder if this actor has any kind of range.

Peter O’Toole and Eric Bana are the two bright spots here but for a film of this magnitude, that is simply not enough.

Troy rates (out of four).

~Edwin