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TROY by Tom McCurrie
Take one seminal work of Greek literature. Mix director Wolfgang Petersen, the man behind "Air Force One" and "The Perfect Storm". Add mega-star Brad Pitt. And sprinkle liberally with 175 million dollars worth of production value. And what do you get? Not Filet Mignon, unfortunately, but "Troy", a movie as uneven as Pitt's pseudo-British accent.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Written by David Benioff, the author and screenwriter of "The 25th Hour", "Troy" is based on Homer's "The Iliad", the epic poem describing the siege of Troy by Greek armies circa 1200 BC. Said siege is the result of Troy's prince Paris running off with Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, prompting his big brother Agamemnon, King of Greece, to send 1,000 ships full of his best warriors to get her back. Against this formidable army lies the city-state of Troy, guarded by walls so impregnable they have never been breached. Then again, these walls have never faced the Greeks' secret weapon, Achilles, the most fearsome warrior the world has ever seen.
Here we have irresistible force meets immovable object, the source of every great conflict, and the foundation of every great drama. So why does "Troy" entertain for only part of its 162-minute running time?
One problem is the movie plays fast and loose with the original source material, having Agamemnon and Menelaus killed at Troy instead of returning to Greece very much alive, while ending the story with the Trojan Horse and the sacking of the great city, which don't even occur in "The Iliad" (referenced instead in its sequel, "The Odyssey"). "Troy" also excises the Gods from the narrative, even though they strongly interfered in the affairs of men in Homer's version. After all, it is Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, not Hector, who saves Paris from Menelaus' sword by making him invisible. Maybe Petersen cut the deities out to avoid turning "Troy" into a Hellenic version of that big-budget turkey "Van Helsing". Unfortunately, by removing the Gods, he also removes much of the wonder, enchantment and humor from his tale, leaving a rather dreary, garden-variety war movie in its wake.
Now most adaptations are guilty of poetic license in one way or another. But "Troy" pushes this license too far when it compresses the Trojan War from its actual ten-year length to a few weeks from start to finish. With the war over this quickly, you start to wonder what made the whole conflict so legendary. Of course, drama works best with a unity of time/place/action, but this is ridiculous. It's like making a movie about World War 2 where Germany invades Poland on Monday and surrenders to the Allies on Friday!
OK, maybe I'm being too snooty about historical accuracy here. Let's take a look at the action. On the up side, the mano a mano spear-cum-swordfight between Achilles and Trojan Prince Hector (Eric Bana) is one of the best duels-to-the-death ever put on film, expertly choreographed and brilliantly edited for maximum excitement. Even better is the opening sequence where Achilles faces down the seemingly ten-foot-tall Boagrius across a plain the length of a football field. Boagrius can use this distance to his advantage since he delights in hurling spears. Achilles' strategy? To dash straight towards this giant at full speed, duck the spears thrown right at the bridge of his nose and leap high enough to run his sword through the guy's neck. A more startling, inventive action set-piece you won't see all year.
Unfortunately, the larger battles between the Greek and Trojan armies are a disappointment. Heavy on computer graphics and animated, anonymous soldiers, they lack the detail and reality needed to pull us in viscerally. They are also too similar in look and feel to the battles in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and thus have a "been-there, done-that" quality to them that fails to impress. Finally, they lack the inventiveness of the battles in "Braveheart", where, in an outstanding sequence, William Wallace's men ward off a cavalry charge with extra-long spears. "Troy", on the other hand, just has armies clashing with swords (and sometimes arrows), which might be more realistic, but gets visually ho-hum after awhile.
The casting is as uneven as the action. Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger have little romantic chemistry, making their great love affair seem forced and unconvincing, more high-school infatuation than grand passion. (Their stiff, bland performances don't help matters, either.) So instead of being angry at the Greeks for trying to thwart this great love, we're angry at Paris and Helen for letting their selfishness kill thousands of innocent men. This leaves us with a conundrum. Since we can't sympathize with Paris or Helen, we're kept at an emotional distance. And since emotions are the bedrock of cinema, that's a problem for "Troy".
Who else can we root for? There's the toughest Greek of them all, Achilles. But Achilles isn't fighting to get Helen back, he's fighting for his own selfish reasons (i.e., to gain immortality in battle), making him difficult to warm up to as well. Nor does Achilles win many sympathizers by dragging Hector's body behind his chariot like a rusty muffler after he slays him. "Troy" tries to give the Greek some heart by having him fall for a Trojan slave girl, but this comes off as contrived as the Paris-Helen "affair", and brings the picture to a grinding halt whenever the relationship rears its ugly head. The casting of Brad Pitt makes matters worse. Though the actor has the physical qualities (i.e., the buff bod) of Achilles, he lacks the command presence, coming across like a male model having a hissy fit whenever he gets mad. Pitt's roving accent, somewhere between Nebraska and London, pushes us away even more.
Thankfully, Eric Bana and Peter O'Toole are much more moving as Hector and his father Priam, King of Troy. Bana fits the physical bill warrior-wise, but skips Pitt's preening and exhibits a more low-key toughness that's quite appealing. The fact that Hector is a reluctant fighter, drawn into battle because of his brother Paris' indiscretion, makes him easier to root for as well, as does his meticulous respect for the rules of war, especially when it comes to letting the enemy bury his dead. Unfortunately, he's killed by Achilles partway through the movie, and it's hard to root for a dead man.
Priam at least stays alive till the climax, and provides "Troy" with its emotional center. In fact, the best scene in the film, at least as far as emotional pull, comes when Priam sneaks into Achilles' tent to ask if he can bury his son. (After slaying Hector in battle, Achilles carted the corpse back to his camp as a prize.) O'Toole delivers a performance of quiet authority and heartbreaking vulnerability all at once, making him the only character, if not worth rooting for, at least worth empathizing with.
It's also a performance that points to what "Troy" could have been -- a powerful tragedy, a fable about complicated human beings who, due to their own foibles, doom themselves to oblivion. Priam offers Helen the protection of Troy, even though this will mean war with Greece. But Paris must have his woman, and whatever Paris wants, Paris gets. In effect, Priam loves his son too much, a fatal flaw that leads to his destruction. That's tragedy -- good, decent men making that one moral mistake that causes them to lose everything. But since we care for so few characters in "Troy" to begin with, it's a film whose tragedy only partially hits home.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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