Gonsalves noted, “Director Wolfgang Petersen is aboard
Troy, and after a few hit-and-miss blockbusters (his last movie was the
waterlogged The Perfect Storm), he has made his most robust yet complex film
since Das Boot, the U-boat drama that launched him internationally.” There are
so many grand-scale battle scenes in “Troy,” released in 2004, and Petersen films
them easily yet with an emphasis on the insanity of the moment. We see
individual one-on-one fights within the larger brawl, small fights where we can
see that this man delights because of speed over strength, while that
man wins because of sheer dumb luck. Other fights, like the one between the
Trojan warrior hero Hector, played by Eric Bana, and a massive Greek enemy, are
amazingly choreographed dances of rage and honor.
Bradd Pitt may take a few critical catapults and
arrows just for having been cast as Achilles, the arrogant warrior and great
hope of Greece, but he’s got the moves. Gonsalves noted, “Pitt has perfected a
highly photogenic maneuver: he runs past an enemy, hops up with his heavy legs
swinging, and jabs his opponent fatally above the shoulderblade — whap!”
However, Pitt brings more to it. His Achilles is a great warrior who feels used
by the greedy king Agamemnon, played by Brian Cox (having a great time) and has
grown disapproving of the very forces that set him in motion towards glory in
war – which means dislike of glory itself. (In Homer, Achilles rejects the
heroic code, saying, “We are all held in a single honor, the brave with the
weaklings.”) By contrast, Hector, as underplayed effectively by Eric Bana, is a
strong warrior who would rather not fight – he’s seen enough fighting to
appreciate any other sensible but honorable alternative.
This great war poem, hilariously, has a soap-opera energy:
Hector’s brother Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs off with Helen (Diane Kruger), the
wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). In the movie, Agamemnon
uses his brother’s rage as a reason to start a war with Troy but really couldn’t
care less about Menelaus’ pride. Gonsalves said, “The weak link of The Iliad
turns out to be the weak link of Troy, especially since Orlando Bloom and Diane
Kruger, twin pretty flowers, barely suggest the transgressive passion that
incinerated a great city. Nevertheless, the story was always meant to focus on
the men pitted against each other over such a trifling matter.” The fight between
Achilles and Hector is amazingly realized, all the more hurtful because we can
precisely read each mean’s emotions going into the fight (despite Achilles’ rage
is silenced in the movie because he is now avenging his cousin, not his “friend”).
Gonsalves said, “If mesmerizing panoramas of mass
carnage don’t pull you in, Troy has a major old warhorse in its ranks: Peter
O’Toole, seldom seen onscreen lately, enters the movie humbly as King Priam,
father of Hector and Paris, and commands the screen effortlessly.” When Priam
meets Helen, O’Toole compliments her beauty, then delivers a single word, “Welcome,”
and devotes those two syllables with an entire movie’s worth of meaning. You can
hear the suggestion of Priam’s frustrations with his son, understanding of why
Paris fell so hard for Helen, and acceptance of whatever this illegal love
might bring to his nation. “He was born to end lives,” someone says of
Achilles, and O’Toole was born to kick movies up another notch.
I remember when this film was coming out, I saw
trailers for it online. However, since I was not old enough to see it, I had to
wait some time before watching it. Even though my brother said he was going to
take me, we never went. I think I was well into my adulthood when I saw the
film as a rental from the library. As someone who is a Greek Myth fan, I think
this film was enjoyable. Especially with Sean Bean playing Odysseus. See this
movie if you haven’t because I give it a recommendation.
Next week, I will be looking at a novel adaptation in “Greek
Mythology Month.” Sorry for the late posting, I took a nap.
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