Troy

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)

Troy is definitely not bad and it has everything that a big-budget production can offer: young and attractive actors, solid war scenes and somewhat decent romance. Above all, it benefits from the stunning Iliad, although unfortunately it only took the rough skeleton and some essential events from it. The notable drawbacks are Diane Kruger and Orlando Bloom, who seem like advertising mannequins – completely unbelievable. On the other hand, Brad Pitt and Eric Bana are surprising. Wolfgang Petersen is more than a decent craftsman who can handle large budgets and thousands of extras. The ending is powerful and the voice-overs are extremely stylish and suitable for this type of film. It's necessary to see the Director's cut, it has gripping bloody battles and at least half a star up. (24/05/2004)

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)

Homer did not deserve this. The Olympian gods didn't deserve it either. The screenwriter completely omitted them, thus depriving the famous story of its true spice, the element of magic and mysticism that so befits ancient epics. If there aren’t any gods or magic, what’s left? A script that is hackneyed, very distantly inspired by “The Iliad”, full of clichés, pathetic chatter and would-be deep thoughts, a boring story that doesn't grab you by the heart and is clumsily told. And there’s not even eye-candy! I just have to laugh at Petersen's talk of "unprecedentedly clear fight scenes", it's just the opposite and the very good Hector vs. Achilles fight doesn't save it. It's not surprising that all the essential fight scenes are seen in just the trailer. If I had to make a comparison, Scott's Gladiator, with about half the budget, looks much more narrative, and although the script was similarly silly, it was a real visual treat, which can't be said of Troy. A few computer-generated shots of the city and incoming ships, Petersen's lacklustre direction lacks any ideas, with rare exceptions. The music wasn't great either, and a few words about the actors: I believed Pitt's arrogant Achilles, Bana is incredibly charismatic, O'Toole is still a great actor, only Bloom, with his not very wide acting register, spoils it and regularly alternates between two expressions: a timid and stubborn. The boss at Warner was in tears during the screening. I wonder if it wasn’t for the desperation of where they burned those 200 million bucks. Poor guy. (16/05/2004)

In the past, this epic Homeric soap opera was enough to make me ecstatic, but times have changed. Troy looks gorgeous, has sequences that can be replayed to the point of insanity, and an unprecedentedly bloated and luxurious cast (except for Legolas, who’s awful again), but the film overestimates itself. While Petersen has confirmed many times that he’s a very capable director, here he has completely forgotten to provide any cohesive parallel developments that would keep the viewer's attention focused for two and a half hours and build the whole mythical conflict up to a scale of fatality higher than the staid Pearl Harbor-type level. The truly impressive adrenaline-packed sequences are interspersed with dull to uninteresting ones, which establish and develop relationships between characters of no importance to the main plot (and this despite the fact that the characters themselves are great – the narcissistic Pitt is brilliant, the chivalrous Bana is an exemplary good guy, Brian Cox is a sleazy villain, and Sean Bean should have been given his own sequel as the likeable Ulysses –  I'll never forgive Hollywood for that). Taken together, it stands as a beautifully made spectacle for the cinema, but its soul is as empty as the stomachs of Somali children, despite its grandeur. 65% (06/05/2018)