Troy

This didn’t get a full-fledged Fellowship of the Ring, “My ass hurts!” but it did warrant a, “Well, that was butt numbing.”

I had to think long and hard about why this film didn’t work. Obviously, poor casting choices didn’t help. I’ll start with the least offending: Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus and Brian Cox as Agamemnon. Interesting but I’ve seen them too many times as British thugs and Irish hard men to suspend disbelief and see them as Greek kings. I was particularly dissappointed in Gleeson’s role as King of Sparta – and in the entire characterization of Sparta – he seemed more the celtic berserker than the king of a people that produced the 300. Next up, Brad Pitt as Achilles. He certainly looked the part and moved as he should have but there’s just something in his voice – something too quintessentially American surfer boy to convincingly do a Greek hero. Lastly we heap scorn upon Orlando Bloom as Paris. Was Paris in The Iliad really the whinging, cowardly little weasel he comes across as? I always thought Paris was supposed to be the make love, not war type which, in certain circumstances, can be an admirable stand on its own. Instead he’s a scheming, conniving wimp. Pathetic.

On the plus side you have Sean Bean as Ulysses and Eric Bana as Hector. I would love to see a big-screen version of the Odyssey just to see Bean in that role again. Amazing. And Hector turned out to be the most sympathetic character of the whole lot. He’s the only one you give a damn for and, even though you know he’s doomed, you still end up rooting for him.

So far we’ve got unsympathetic characters and bad portrayals. That’s bad, but it’s not always enough to sink a film – particularly one with such sweeping scope. Remember the sweeping scope – that’s what actually does the film in. It ought to have sweeping scope: these are acts of courage and heroism that have rebounded through the centuries. Instead we get a thoroughly post-modern view of the Trojan War filled with regrets, self-doubt, overly ambitious kings and arrogant warriors. Maybe that’s what makes Ulysses and Hector so compelling, they’re the only ones that are true to the story.

I have to add a word about the music. The battle scenes just weren’t gripping and I think part of the problem was the music. Either it wasn’t appropriate for the scene, or it was mixed at the wrong volume, or it just didn’t have the oomph required for the task. Pitiful. The director tried to make Braveheart with a Das Boot soundtrack. Everyone else knows that won’t work, how come he didn’t?