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[cascius]

So tonight a friend of mine and I deicded to venture in watching Troy. Our excpetations were fairly high as it was based on a well known epic story that hadn't been told 100 times on the big screen already.

Well, after over one hour of cheesy melo drama and yet not a single hint of action, we looked at one another and discussed the possibility of leaving the theatre. Basically, we were pretty darn borred. If it wasn't for our desire to see what they had done with the troyan horse, we would hae been long gone. Anyway, after a cigarette break, I came back and watched the last 1 1/2 hour. I have to say that the action scenes helped the 2nd part of the film as at least there was something to watch on the screen.

Anyway, the movie is unfortunately centered on Brad (Achilles), who doesn't give a great performance beside during the fight scenes. Orlando is, well, like his character, pretty weak in that role. Also, his weapon of choice, following the legend, is a bow.... Deja vue anyone? I'm not sure whether that was a wise choice. On the contrary, Eric Bana gave a pretty darn good overall performance.

The main problem with the movie was the focus of the story. The heroe in that case is Achilles, who has the morale and behavior of a 7 year old bully whose only talent is to kill people. His character arc is pretty much non existent except for the last 10 minutes of the film. But that came to late in my opinion (140 minutes or so)... He lacked the oh so required three dimentionality of a great main character. Therefore I couldn't relate to, nor care about him.

It's too bad, I thought the material(the legend) behind the movie could have made a great epic in the lineage of Gladiator. It wasn't. So if you consider going to see this movie, you might want to wait for it to come out on DVD.

This is how I feel about it and I'm curious to see what you guys thought about it.

Good night,

-Cascius

[salsbst1]

We saw it last night: B-.

The first half of the movie: C-.
2nd half: B+.

The movie has a lot of situations to set up and does so crudely.  However, once all of the dominoes were set up, it was fun to watch them fall.

One of us wished the soundtrack had been more closely synchronized emotionally with the action.

One of us thought the film should have, like the book, covered the pre-war information as flashbacks.

One of us thought the film would have had more weight if it hadn't almost completely ignored the chess game that gods were making out of it.

All of us thought it a little silly that all of the leads looked northern European, while all of the extras looked Mediterranean.

I laughed out loud as the last lines of the film set up the possibility of a sequel.

[loraan]

Here was my review:

---
"Like Pearl Harbor, Troy Bombs"

What a waste of a few hours and several hundred millions of dollars. "Troy" tries to be too much all at once, and in the end, is pretty bad at everything. There is nothing in this movie, except for Brad Pitt's naked butt, that hasn't been done better elsewhere:

- Epic battle sequences: Braveheart.
- The tragedy of war: Saving Private Ryan.
- Roman-era man-on-man fights: Gladiator.
- Period romance: Rob Roy

The dialog is flat, both in writing and delivery. The acting is one-dimensional. The cinematography is amateurish. The sets are monochromatic. The costumes, at least, are accurate.

The plot should have been the one part of this movie that was impossible to screw up, since Homer basically perfected it 3000 years ago, but no, it had to be "Hollywood-ized". Instead of an epic poem about a siege, we get a Grecian-era bodice-ripper, but with uninteresting, flat characters. I swear to god if one more woman begs a soldier not to go to battle I'm going to gag. This is my impression of "Troy":

Wife: "Don't go."
Soldier: "I have to go."
W: "Don't go, you don't have to."
S: "Yes, I do. You know I have to."
W: "No, you don't. Please, don't go."
S: "I have no choice, I have to."
etc....

I mean, you're married to a soldier. What do you expect him to do when the city is besieged?!

In addition to the fact that I think this is just genuinely a bad movie, this movie offended me in much the same way as Pearl Harbor did. I find the "pop-ification" of actual horriffic events to be distasteful. It's one thing to show a terrible event like WWII with some honesty and reverence ("Private Ryan", for example), but to simply use the event as a setting for your insipid little high-school melodrama is disrespectful, even if it was 3,000 years ago.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm no longer tintillated by ultra-realistic violence and gore for its own sake. In a world where we can see Nicholas Berg (the Pennsylvania businessman whose beheading at the hands of Iraqui militants was videotaped and released on the Internet) being beheaded FOR REAL, it just doesn't seem entertaining to me to watch Brad Pitt chop off somebody's head on the screen. Not when the violence itself--designed to evoke an emotional response that we will hopefully accept in lieu of entertainment--is all there is, without any deeper meaning, intent, or even plot to back it up.

I really really highly recommend you see one of the four movies that I listed above INSTEAD OF this absolute bore of a movie.  In fact, I think I'm going to watch Rob Roy again just to wash the taste of "Troy" out of my mouth.
---

[bebop]

Saw the four listed programs, enjoyed them and think I will pass on Troy.  thanks for the heads up.  Bet

[cascius]

Good reviews guys, I agree with all the things you both added. One absolutely ridiculous detail I just remembered was that at some point in the film the music score includes a bagpipe (I hope this is the correct english term for that instrument)... Scotish instruments in a Greek epic? That cracked me up.

-Cascius

[hit_ny]

Wow, can we say that all comments unanimously trash the movie Troy (no pun intended in this context).

Was looking forward to seeing this movie, thought it would be as good as Gladiator.

I guess i will skip it for the TV version, though i wonder how good it would be, as epics like these are best seen in the theater to savour the special effects. Are those any good ?

[Sir Alan]

One absolutely ridiculous detail I just remembered was that at some point in the film the music score includes a bagpipe (I hope this is the correct english term for that instrument)... Scotish instruments in a Greek epic? That cracked me up.

Um...  bagpipes are not exclusively Scottish.  They have been, and still are, used across much of Europe, including England, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, France - and Greece.  Aristophanes (445-385 BC) mentioned them. It's very likely the Greeks were playing them at the siege of Troy.  Whatever faults the film may have, that ain't one of them (unless of course they were playing "Scotland The Brave")  

[gpvillamil]

One absolutely ridiculous detail I just remembered was that at some point in the film the music score includes a bagpipe (I hope this is the correct english term for that instrument)... Scotish instruments in a Greek epic? That cracked me up.

Um...  bagpipes are not exclusively Scottish.  They have been, and still are, used across much of Europe, including England, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, France - and Greece.  Aristophanes (445-385 BC) mentioned them. It's very likely the Greeks were playing them at the siege of Troy.  Whatever faults the film may have, that ain't one of them (unless of course they were playing "Scotland The Brave")  

Also Spain. Asturias & Galicia (the northwestern regions) may have as many pipers as Scotland.

http://www.sfcelticmusic.com/spain/celtica.htm

Hey, the thread is becoming about music!