Review for Troy (1-disc)

Introduction

I am now forcing myself to watch movies. This isn't a comment on the quality of said movies, rather that I find that I have accumulated a fair number of DVDs that I haven't as yet watched, and I really want to reduce the size of that pile. But when it comes to choosing a film to watch, I'm more likely to stand there for half an hour, thinking and deliberating, trying to decide just which film I am in the mood for, by the end of which time I realise that it's getting late, too late for a 2 hour plus movie, and I decide to do something else instead. Which is why I now have a 'top of the pile and watch regardless of my mood' policy. That is also why I wound up watching Troy last night, a film that I picked up on a whim in the ridiculously cheap aisle of my supermarket, but for some reason hasn't appealed to me as much as that £1.99 price tag that attracted me to it in the first place.


Troy is part of that renaissance of the Swords and Sandals genre that was unleashed with Ridley Scott's Gladiator, which showed that CGI needn't only be applied to sci-fi extravaganzas, but could give an added air of reality to historical epics as well. It allowed for the current generation of actors and directors to venture into areas that previously belonged to Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston, Cecil B DeMille and Stanley Kubrick. Gladiator begat Troy and Alexander (a little lower on my to watch pile), Kingdom of Heaven (near the bottom), and this year has seen the remake of Clash of the Titans (nowhere near my to watch pile). 2004 was the year of the Greek invasion, with Wolfgang Petersen's Troy going head to head with Oliver Stone's Alexander. Troy sees Brad Pitt don Hollywood's loincloth of gold in the retelling of the ancient Greek legend, but there are more than a few liberties taken with Homer's epic, and imagine my disappointment when no one expectorates "This is Sparta!" at the camera.


So, Paris, younger son of King Priam of Troy, and Helen, wife of Menelaus King of Sparta fall in love, which is problematic as Troy and Sparta have just signed a peace treaty, and brothers Paris and Hector have been guests of Menelaus to celebrate. When the brothers set sail for home, it turns out that Helen has stowed away, determined to be with her one true love. It has Menelaus spitting blood, determined to go to war with Sparta to avenge his besmirched honour. Which is all that his brother Agamemnon has been waiting for. Agamemnon has spent the better part of his life uniting the kingdoms of Greece under his own banner, demanding fealty from all the kings. Having just conquered Thessaly, all that remains is recalcitrant and proud Troy. It's the toughest nut to crack as well, with its citizenry protected by impenetrable walls, and led by Hector, its army second to none. Agamemnon has a secret weapon of his own though, the 'immortal' warrior Achilles.

The Disc

Troy gets a very pleasant 2.40:1 anamorphic transfer. The image is clear and sharp as you would expect on a recent film, and it boasts some splendid production design, effective and mostly seamless CGI, and great sets and locations. The only obvious CGI is that which is impossible to accomplish otherwise, battle scenes and a fleet of Greek galleys. Some of the scene changes are juddery and awkward though, while the fashion of close-up, shaky cam battle sequences is followed to the letter.


Audio comes in DD 5.1 English and German, with some eight languages represented on the subtitle tracks. The surround is effective enough, punchy when required in the action sequences, leaving the dialogue clear at all times. The score from James Horner works well, but doesn't stick in the mind afterwards, and the end theme is pure Disney cheese. You can't change the audio or the subtitles on the fly, which is a bit of a pain.

This being the vanilla single-disc edition, there are no extras on the disc.

Conclusion

Troy didn't quite do it for me, as it turned out to be something of a study in oxymorons. It's entertaining but dull, action packed but tedious, smart and dumb with it. I think the biggest flaw was in trying to make it realistic. Homer's Iliad, on which this film is based, is an epic poem of heroes, set in a world where the fate of men is decided by the whims of gods. But Wolfgang's Petersen's film takes all aspects of divinity out of the story, opting for realism, and presenting the story as historical fact. It becomes a sort of Ancient Greek Braveheart of a film, except of course that there is little or no evidence that these characters actually existed, that these exact events occurred. It becomes a faux historical epic.


The problem is that it isn't a history, it is a myth, and by removing the mythological elements, it feels like a watered down myth at that. These are less characters than they are archetypes, and while it does feel that there is dimension to some like Achilles and Priam, Odysseus and Agamemnon, the others just feel wafer thin and ephemeral, especially Paris and Helen, the pair who set all this in motion by embarking on their illicit love. Then, when elements of fantasy do intrude, they seem all the more outrageous. Certainly the idea of someone throwing a spear a hundred or so metres, horizontally is laughable, while the sheer gullibility of anyone falling for the Trojan Horse ploy in the real world beggars belief. It's acceptable if there are gods behind the scenes, playing dice with human souls, but not with the veneer of realism that the director seeks with this telling of the epic.


The dialogue is variable, awkward and stilted at times, inspired at others, while some of the casting seems ill-considered. Certainly Eric Bana seems out of his depth as Hector, while Orlando Bloom is nondescript enough to be invisible. But Brian Cox is excellent as Agamemnon, the scheming king of kings, Sean Bean is equally impressive as Odysseus, while Brad Pitt takes Achilles in a very interesting direction, reinventing him as a David Beckham of the battlefield, a hero to his countrymen, idolised and adored, but in it not for power or aggrandizement, but for fame, glory, and immortality. Like the highest paid footballers, he's highly-strung and apt to sulk when things aren't going his way. It's a neat way of looking at the character and he really pops off the screen. It's a shame that the same can't be said for the rest of the film.


The action, when it's one on one and not the mayhem of battle, is exciting and engaging, but the story without its mythological elements is thin and unrewarding. Troy is an entertaining bit of fluff, but one that outstays its welcome. That there is a 3-hour plus director's cut available sounds daunting. It's a distinctly average film, but with a rare moment of magnificence.