TROY (2004) Ow! Right in the Achilles tendon! Braveheart worked because it had endearlingly larger-than-life characters, earthy humor, beautiful scenery, and hundreds and hundreds of people hacking and slashing at each other. Gladiator worked because it had some flashy action, one of Hans Zimmer's less intrusively self-cannibalizing scores, and good heroic performances. Troy has none of these things. Well, very few of them anyway. Of all the mega-budgeted sword-swinging battle epics to come out in the last ten years, this is the most tedious and the first one I can say I really disliked. It's not really an adaptation of The Iliad, it's just "inspired by" it - most obviously, there are no gods here, and Achilles isn't immortal. In fact, the point is made frequently and obviously that gods don't get involved and the supernatural is a little unreliable, and pains are taken (and given) to show that everybody's only human. Now, I haven't read The Iliad, so I'm not gonna pretend that I know anything about it, or how it "should" be adapted. But Troy - which didn't even keep the title of its source material, so you shouldn't hold it to a very rigid standard as to its faithfulness to it - fails simply because it's a bore. First off, most of the performances are just dull. Brad Pitt might be pleased with himself that he's probably in the best shape he's ever been in, but onscreen he looks bored. Orlando Bloom does not convince us that his feelings for Helen (Diane Kruger) are anything more than adolescent hormones, while Kruger and indeed the other two prominent women in the cast (Saffron Burrows and Rose Byrne) basically spend their time whimpering over the deeds of the men in their lives. Paul Gleeson and Brian Cox both ham it way up as villains, and provide the movie with a few of the only things that provoked even a smile from me. Watch for James Cosmo (Hamish's dad in Braveheart) as a Trojan general; he does not hide his Scottish accent, and that's another thing that got a smile. Peter O'Toole - who I could've sworn died recently - could've done this role in his sleep but like a lot of aging UK actors, he can make things work with the sound of his voice alone. The only actor here who's good all the time for all the right reasons is Eric Bana as Hector; he's the only character here with any convincing depth. Everyone else gets to be conflicted and angsty (pretty much the last things I want to see in battle-epic heroes), but nobody commands sympathy except Hector, possibly because he's the only character here who isn't an unredeemably selfish prick and isn't in thrall to superstitions the script too-easily makes the viewer feel superior to. And if you know anything about the Iliad (even if you listen to Manowar) you know he's not going to be sticking around for the end. The action sequences are plentiful, scarcely letting up in the latter half, even two-thirds of the movie. However, there's little difference between them. Action sequences benefit from having characters and motivations we care about, yes, but there are also simpler things that can bog them down, like scenery. You don't have multiple action sequences in the same place, they get monotonous. Most of the action in this movie takes place either on a beach, or on a long stretch of sand between the beach and the city. Reportedly the most expensive movie ever made (for the moment), Troy doesn't even look all that expensive; most of the movie takes place in those two locations. Two hundred megabucks buys a lot of computer-generated effects, but when it comes to visceral and bloody battle sequences, I'll take flesh-and-blood extras and blood packs any day. The action scenes are also largely bloodless; even some of the gore shots looked computer-generated. The other things that got a smile from me were the introductory "battle" that sets up Pitt's Achilles as the greatest warrior in the world (a nice change from the expected knock-down-drag-out), great rolling balls of fire being used against the Greeks (though I hear this was recycled from Spartacus), and the one-on-one fight later in the film between Achilles and Hector. And I appreciated the brevity of the now extremely tired battle-epic cliché of the rousing pre-battle speeches. But that's about it. Otherwise, Troy is two and three quarters of an hour of repetitive action sequences, dry windbag blubbering about being remembered throughout the centuries, boring characters, boring locations, and I think one attempt at having a sense of humor when Achilles pokes fun at his own legend. When the Trojan Horse finally comes into play at the end, I was not clear on exactly why the Trojans had to bring it inside the city - all the way from the beach, which if you see the movie you can see must've been a giant pain in the ass - and I don't know if any explanation outside of this taking place in legend instead of history would account for such a monumentally stupid move. Characters in legend are given certain allowances for irrational behavior. I'm reluctant to give as much slack to characters in a supposedly historical, non-fantastical, down-to-earth telling. Troy also has the blue-ribbon most obnoxious score I have ever heard, which has exactly two modes - percussion (sounds like bongos and toms; for buildups to the battles) and some chick atonally yowling "YAAAHHHH, YAAH YAAH YAAAAAAAH" mixed so high in the film it made me wince every time I heard her. James Horner has farted out some real turkeys, but this goes way beyond anything I'd thought him capable of. If you absolutely have to have your sword-and-sandal fix set in ancient Greece, I'd suggest holding out for one of the Alexander The Great biopics, whenever they get done. BACK TO THE T's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE