Troy

There’s a problem with Troy. On one hand it has excellent acting performances and spectacular production design, on the other fluctuating directing and stiff dialogs. The screenplay is also a little shaky, making it seem like the Trojan War lasted just a couple of months, instead of ten years. But I appreciate that Benioff wrote everything to be very natural (meaning non-fantasy) and “undivine". But back to Peterson’s directing. In the battles and in some scenes he show that he is able to invoke the right atmosphere and knows how to form the action properly, but in some places he lacks consistency. The music is also a handicap, written in haste by a new composer at the last minute. In terms of acting, as I already said, Troy is excellent. Surprisingly the main star Brad Pitt is easily overshadowed by Eric Bana (both my eyes were moist when Hector was dying ;). Sean Bean didn’t manage to steal much room for his Odysseus, but even so he easily nailed the role of treacherous king. I must also admit that Orlando Bloom had a very thankless role. Playing the greatest idiot in the greatest Greek war isn’t such a trump as it may seem at first sight. But he did a fine job of the role and I must admit that throughout the movie I kept on swearing at Paris under my breath. I remember one thing that made me feel for him for a minute. It was in the scene on the coast when he said: “Burn that horse." And they didn’t obey him. (16/12/2006)

A sugary parade of stars and spectacular fight scenes. The actors are decent and the production design is nice. The fight between Achilles and Hector may be the best I have seen in the genre, though that’s debatable. Troy doesn’t have even a fraction of the charm of William Wyler’s films and is nothing more than a calculated, technically brilliant popcorn flick. (13/05/2004)

First of all, the film's title says "inspired by Homer's Iliad, for which I forgive it a great deal. It has almost nothing to do with Homer's masterpiece, unless I count the partially beaten story. Petersen's film is an attempt to look behind the myth by "reviving" the first event. They are not gods, they are not heroes outside of time and space, there is only a great human story of passion, love, betrayal, war and heroism. There are positive and negative heroes (hector is positive, while surprisingly the conquering Agamemnon negative), but there are also heroes between good and evil (Paris and Achilles). There are plenty of layers to play out this compelling and riveting story, but there's only one layer in which the creators actually do it – the layer of Hollywood spectacle. Troy is nothing more. It lacks pure emotion without calculus, it lacks real charm and monumentality (the tricks suck when there is nothing "behind" them). Petersen does exactly what he famously did in the dream factory: creates a good craftsmanship product. The battle scenes are excellent in large units and details (the Achilles vs. Hector battle is flawless), but his direction is lacking in the empathy and imagination with which The Boat or The NeverEnding Story still shine today. Nothing more than technical skill. This skill is subdued by Horner's shameful soundtrack without any excitement, distinctive melody or a drop of energy. On the other hand, he is helped by the brilliant Pitt-Banna duo. Pitt played his role with admirable conviction, and if there is one thing that could survive this single-use candy, it is Achilles, a hero on the edge of boundless arrogance and fragile vulnerability. The other faces? Bloom is traditionally terrible and now also unsympathetic. O'Toole is kind of awkward, but at key moments persuasive, Bean is drowned in a miserable and touting screenplay, etc. The end of the film is such cruel smut that the knife in my pocket opened. Inspired by Illias and endless stupidity. Homer’s Denyen besieged Troy for ten years, Petersen's extras are done with it after 14 days. Homer’s masterpiece lasted thousands of years, Petersen's opus won't survive this season. I'm sorry, but he owns it. --- marginalia: the jokes with Aeneas and Achilles' heel are really good. It is probably pointless to mention that this version does not work in the complex of Greek myths and illogically denies many of them (Agamemnon is a shining example of this, as is the oracle Laocoön)... (17/05/2004)

An ambitious epic that stumbles over its miserable screenplay and idealess directing. A tirade of mediocre scenes and seeming ignorance of the myth make Troy an uninteresting attempt at a great movie which is closer to being a big studio sword-and-sandal Cecil B. DeMille epic than a modern movie intended for the big screen. ♫ OST score: 2/5 (29/01/2007)

Troy is notable primarily as a case study on how Hollywood adapts a classic work with countless characters, motifs and both supernatural and earthbound elements into the form of a spectacular mainstream popcorn epic needing fewer characters, a few cleanly resolved storylines and, mainly, the omission of everything that could be off-putting for the supposed majority of viewers, i.e. everything from deities to non-heterosexual relationships. (15/09/2023)