TROY: It sucks

[Johann]

I was looking forward to this film. An epic from the director of Das Boot, based on the writings of the immortal Homer, great battle sequences (at least it seemed that way based on the trailer) and a buff Brad Pitt kicking ass.


NO NO NO NO no NO!

I'm convinced the former great German director has been lost to Hollywood. You could have told me this film was made by Ridley Scott and I would have believed it.
Somehow the sky turned very dark and gray when I went into that theatre.....because this movie sucks sour frog ass.
Yeah, Pitt is a bulked-up dude, but that only means he's no different from any extra who was paraded in Gladiator.

Sorry, this is not how I imagined the Trojan War or Troy when reading the poetry of Homer.

I'm too bored to even type up a synopsis! I can refer you to Roger Ebert's review at Sun-Times.com, which pretty much sums up my feelings.
Shame on me for thinking Wolfie could rebound from Air Force One (a film I wouldn't watch again if you paid me a million dollars) and The Perfect Storm.
We've lost another great director to the muck and mire of commercial crap! It's getting to be a long list, daddy-o.....

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know what you were expecting, Johann.

Sure, I was looking forward to it too, but I was expecting a cheesy Hollywood epic with cute guys. Actually, it's not that simple. It's a "sword and sandal" epic, but very well done for the genre. Some of the dialogue is stupid, but not laugh out loud stupid, just lost in translation stupid. The music is pretty corny and conventional. But the battles are very well done, and the images are handsome. The burning of Troy is spectacular. My friends and I were discussing whether Diane Kruger (Helen) was as pretty as Orlando Bloom (Paris). We decided no. I have to say that Brad Pitt swaggers wonderfully and is an impressive sword-and-sandal warrior. Unlike in Gladiator, you almost see what's going on during the major mano-a-mano encounters. I think this movie looks a lot better than most of the toga epics of earlier decades.

As I say, I don't know what you were looking for. Did you really think a multimillion dollar movie about the Trojan war would turn out to be an art film? Did you think Das Boot was an art film?

I think Roger Ebert goes way overboard against, just as David Denby in The New Yorker goes pretty far overboard pro (though he does get in some digs along the way and at the end, so it hardly adds up to a rave). The truth, as so often is the case, lies somewhere in between. I'd go with Jonathan Rosenbaum who says the movie has "has plenty of visual sweep, fine action sequences, and, thanks especially to Brad Pitt (as Achilles) and Peter O'Toole (as King Priam), a deeper sense of character than one might expect from a sword-and-sandal epic." Indeed the scene where O'Toole as Priam sneaks into the tent of Pitt as Achilles is very touching, and O'Toole has the most emotional moments in a movie that is more about politics and fighting than the clashes of wills and manipulations of the gods you find in Homer. I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I think you were probably expecting something the movie could never have delivered.

You're right that Brad is buff and so are all the other guys. The difference between this and the Hollywood epics of the Fifties and Sixties, is they don't have to call in professional body builders to star, the guys in Beverly Hills all work out. But you kind of wonder if Hector, Paris, Menalaus, Achilles, et al. really had Nautilus 3,000 years ago. Maybe not. They sure didn't have personal trainers.

Another fair assessment, from A.O.Scott: "for what it is — a big, expensive, occasionally campy action movie full of well-known actors speaking in well-rounded accents — 'Troy' is not bad. It has the blocky, earnest integrity of a classic comic book, and it labors to respect the strangeness and grandeur of its classical sources. Some moments may make you rue the existence of cinema, or at least of movies with sound, since the dialogue often competes with James Horner's score for puffed-up obviousness. But there are others — crisply edited combat sequences, tableaus of antique splendor, a hugely muscled Brad Pitt modeling the latest in Hellenic leisure wear — that remind you why you like movies in the first place."

But not you, Johann, because you like them for something else; something the 48-year-old avant-gardist Lars von Trier delivers to you better nowadays, maybe, than the 63-year-old action-adventure specialist Wolfgang Petersen.

I was kind of hoping that, with Hollywood as gay-friendly as it is now, there'd be some kind of romance going on between Achilles and Patroclus, as tradition says there was. But that's softpedaled, with the result that Achilles' wrath (which I thought the Illiad was about) doesn't make too much sense. The filmmakers are in their rights on this, though, because Homer doesn't explicitly say Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. This will disappoint the gay audience, especially since it's a throwback to the timidity about such subjects of many decades ago.

[Johann]

I was expecting a film that would make me forget that it's 2004- even Spartacus did a better job of that.
I was expecting better acting- not just from Pitt- from everybody.
I wasn't expecting an art film, but I wasn't expecting a high-gloss "swords and sandals" epic, either. I wanted it to be the DEFINITIVE trojan war film, and why it didn't deliver is a total mystery- Peterson could have pulled it off, Pitt could have been better- Pitt is a great actor! Why did his Achilles seem to be a stand-in? Pitt, while having lots to offer the ladies, didn't deliver a timeless performance for me. He was "OK". Nothing too memorable about his work here. Eric Bana, on the other hand had more depth than Pitt. Look for more good work from him in the future. I got my eye on the guy.

Achilles should be played by someone with mind-blowing charisma and presence. Pitt was Pitt (albeit in Roman Pilates mode"). I simply have a lot of trouble believing him as Achilles.

Maybe my expectations are too high, I don't know, I can't say exactly what I wanted from this film- whose ad campaigns were so luring and well made that it should make killer box-office.

Oh those studios execs who green-lighted this baby, I can hear them now: "We got Pitt, Bloom, Gladiator-type stuff going on, the kids will love it! Cha-ching!"

[Chris Knipp]

"Maybe my expectations are too high, I don't know, I can't say exactly what I wanted from this film- whose ad campaigns were so luring and well made that it should make killer box-office. "

whose ad campaigns were so luring. . .it should make killer box-office

That's what your disappointment is all about. The grand and glorious previews. Previews no movie could live up to. Like Last Samurai. That, too, was a creditable pop epic, but no movie could live up to its awesome previews. This is a costume epic blockbuster, man. It cost a lot of money and it's supposed to make a lot of money. Cha-ching: yes!

Brad Pitt a good actor? Where? In little stuff he can be great, as an Irish crook, maybe (Snatch). In a lighthearted movie like Ocean's Eleven, playing off the debonair George Clooney and picking up his timing. In wild, hardscrabble stuff like Twelve Monkeys or Fight Club. But you know what my favorite Brad Pitt performances are? The cameo charmer in Thelma and Louise, and -- most of all, and I'm not alone; I could watch it over and over -- the hilarious tiny bits he has as the motel stoner in True Romance. Little, offbeat, quick turns -- that's where he has excelled. In other places he's been the deadly prettyboy. Troy was too solemn and serious for him. The physical part he does beautifully, but he gets all pseudo-English and chews his lines and it doesn't work. Not if you want to forget it's 2004.

It's very important -- fatal for him as an actor -- that Brad Pitt has always been a prettyboy actor. "The sexiest man alive." He also has a funny Oklahoma way of speaking that's pretty incompatible with the Brits in this flick. And he tries to make up for it by doing a British R sound and that's just plain embarrassing.

[Johann]

I don't want to seem like a hearty champion of Brad Pitt (I'm not) but I single out 12 Monkeys as proof the dude can act. I love the film because of Pitt and it's twisted, psychotic leanings toward Marker's La Jetee. Gilliam was having a good day when he made 12 Monkeys.

I agree completely with you about Pitt as a standout in bit parts.
You've nailed all of his "must-see" roles.

His accent in Troy is ludicrous. I just cannot take him seriously in this movie. Maybe it's because I don't respect him as a person- he married Jennifer Anniston. That guy could have any woman in the world and he picks her. She's pretty and she's been lucky with her acting career (and paychecks), but man, if I could have anyone in the world, I'd be taking a year off and scoping out the female scenery all over the world. Pitt? Nope, he'd rather wax on with Jen about nuclear weapons and watch "Friends".
It's all over for the guy. ALL OVER.

Sorry, Bradley. Can I buy you a beer and we talk about it?

[Chris Knipp]

It may be ALL OVER for Brad with you, but I'd doubt that the public will abandon him over Troy. Bad accents are the stuff of sword and sandal epicdom. I don't think we disagree at all on his acting abilities, though you may be overlooking one aspect of his career choices. I mentioned 12 Monkeys, didn't I, as one of his good movies? But what you're overlooking is that Brad can slide into prettyboy mode and be in something awful and saccherine like A River Runs, Legends of the Fall, or Meet Joe Black, in which he is terrible. He's quite capable of making a bad choice and being terrible, so when you see him slightly miscast and not being entirely convincing in talk scenes, you shouldn't be so surprised. If you'd been better prepared, you wouldn't be so disenchanted.

As for Jennifer, I'd have looked elsewhere myself, but I don't think any guy can have any mate he chooses. It's a matter of luck and people don't score the perfect match often and if he and Jennifer are happy together let's leave them be. I do find it hard to see how she could have been picked as one of the 50 most beautiful people though--that was just because of her Friends role and her association with Brad.

[HorseradishTree]

*sigh*... I tried so hard to like Troy.

I mean, since I took ancient history last year, I've becomed ensconced with Homer (and others)'s epic tales.

But everyone's got to face the facts. This really wasn't a very good movie. The only real high point was the casting, but they didn't appear too well directed.

I especially praise the decision of Sean Bean as Odysseus. Who could see him in an Odyssey film? But, knowing Hollywood these days, I'm afraid they'd slap a "no-gods" policy on that one too.

What is the world coming to when Wolfgang Petersen can't manage to re-create one of the greatest stories of all time?

[Chris Knipp]

IT's not that bad. The truth is somewhere in between the extremes, and some Homer fans really enjoyed it. This is far from being the worst of the sword&sandal epic genre.

[HorseradishTree]

Just watch Jason and the Argonauts instead. That should be satisfying enough.

By the way, the Alexander trailer is out, and I can't wait! Hooah!