| TROY |
 2004 - USADirector: Wolfgang Petersen - Movie reviewed by Rachel, DVD reviewed by Tim
Troy takes a more practical approach and includes the political greed of Menelaus’ brother, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), as the real reason for this war. Aggie (as I like to call him) pushes the war as the perfect excuse to take over Troy, the last independent city in his empire. After all, Menelaus really only wants Helen back so he can kill her for cuckolding him. War, man. What is it good for? ANYWAY…. each side has their best and brightest ready to fight. Troy has Prince Hector (Eric Bana), Paris’ brother and the best warrior they’ve got. Sparta has Achilles (Brad Pitt), and here we come to the meat of this movie. Troy is not a love story; it’s a warrior profile. Rife with spiritual doubt, machismo, and excessive talk of honor, this is a movie about men/war/testosterone, pure and simple. Don’t get me wrong; I was duly impressed with Brad Pitt as the Michael Jordan of Greece—an unrivaled physical specimen who was practically unstoppable in battle. The several shots of his well-tanned honey-baked ham didn’t hurt either. And this is really Achilles’ movie. Hector is the official good guy, protecting the city and his wimpy, lovesick younger brother. But Achilles is our hero: the angry, tortured rebel who finds love and honor (of course) only in his final moment. So in a nutshell: nice cinematography, great battle scenes, intense one-on-one combat, and lots of pretty people. I also liked the bipartisan approach. This is a pretty decent portrayal of two sides dealing with an inevitable conflict the best way they know how. I do have four small complaints: #1 would have to be the insipid dialogue. Underused gems such as “I’m not afraid to die” and “You’re the best son a father could ever have” caused the eye to occasionally roll. #2 was how the idea of Achilles’ name living forever in history was beat dead into the ground. Are we really supposed to believe that everyone involved in the Trojan War was consumed by a sense of his or her place in history? Well, yes. That is what they want you to believe. And should you doubt me, rest assured, you will be TOLD this in no uncertain terms….over….and over….and over….again. #3 was the music. I kept thinking about Gladiator and how cool the music was and I thought Troy could use some of the same ambiance. There’s some annoying whining that I guess was supposed to sound mournful, and no really cool music. Maybe I missed it. I don’t know. #4: The boys were prettier than the girls. Humph! Other than that, Troy is beautiful to look at and a fantastic vehicle for Brad’s gluts and pecs. (And who knew Achilles would get shot in the heel?!? Wow!) I’m giving it 6 slices because it’s a good action movie, very much for the guys, and a well-told story—despite the oddly self-aware historical figures and the hollow talk of wartime values. A story this big and complex can’t be all things to all people. So I’m giving it props for accomplishing what it did. DVD NOTES - by TimThe DVD release of Troy gets the full 2-disc treatment, chock full of extras. The second disc of the includes the standard behind-the-scenes featurette that you would expect from an epic film like Troy. There is a pretty funny nugget that is hidden in the menu that is the possible result of a programmer with too much time on his hands. "In the Thick of the Battle" is a look at all the work that went into staging the big battle scenes. Using fighting techniques with spears to making a believable sword battle, there were hundreds of Bulgarian and Mexican extras trying not to actually kill each other while running directly at someone with something quite pointy. "From Ruins to Reality" shows us the enormous task of creating the city of Troy in Malta and Baja. Turns out that the city would most likely not have been as grand, in scale, as what was portrayed in the movie, but with a movie like this, you might as well get the biggest bang for the buck. Most of the sets were built to full scale to make it more believable. At one point, in Baja, the set was destroyed by hurricane Marty so they were forced to rebuild it to finish the last three days of shooting. "Troy: An Effects Odyssey" goes though the visual effects that had to be created to show, for example, an armada of 1000 ships traveling across the ocean and landing on the beach when there were actually only 2 ships built for production. They also cover how they were able to create 75,000 warriors when there was actually only something like 800 to shoot with. It is quite similar to how it was done in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. "Gallery of the Gods" gives brief descriptions of the 12 gods on Mt. Olympus and how they shaped the fate of Troy. The amount of time spent on each god was a bit lacking, but it did rekindle the interest I had of the mythology of the time. I’m kind of a geek for DVD extras. I don’t mind spending the additional hour or two seeing the production stuff. If you like this stuff, too, pop in the second disc and hit play! |
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Well, I guess I’ll have to summarize the story of Troy for everyone, since I’m sure you never learned anything about this in our terrible public school system. If it weren’t for the movies, how would we all learn history?? OK, so, legend has it that the Trojan War started because Prince Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom) decided to steal Helen, Queen of Sparta and wife of King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). Helen (Diane Kruger) was so gawd-awful beautiful that Menelaus started this terrible war just to get her back. Thus she became “the face that launched a thousand ships.”
