Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Don't be deceived -- get out of cinema quick!

Hollywood thinks it knows best when adapting one of the oldest pieces of European literature, Homer’s poem The Illiad. The movie version Troy, about the sacking of Troy by the Greeks 1000 years before Christ because of personal politics, thoughtlessly adapts Homer’s classic and is laden with the pretence associated with a Hollywood epic.

Troy seems to be attempting to capitalize on the successes of Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings, yet the display of the talents of directors Peter Jackson or Ridley Scott do not find their equal with Troy’s director Wolfgang Peterson (The Perfect Storm). Although Rings and Gladiator were great examples of the epic, Troy presumes their sort of Hollywood package is going to make a better film than the possibilities The Illiad presents.

For a $200 million budget the look of this epic is downgrade - dingy and claustrophobic and looks and feels more rushed than artistic.

Greece under King Agamemnon (Brian Cox, X-Men 2) is conquering far and wide in the ancient European world. When the son of King Priam, Prince Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom) takes the wife of the younger brother of Agamemnon, Menelaus, warfare breaks out between the Trojans and Greeks. Achilles (Brad Pitt) has a grudge against Agamemnon and for a period in the film will not fight until his cousin, Patroclus, dies in battle, killed by Prince Hector (Eric Bana, The Hulk), and so seeks vengeance against Hector.

At the very least Troy doesn’t inaccurately capture the sense of the Greek heroic age. Brad Pitt’s Achilles is a solid portrait of the warrior spirit and its accompanying physicality. The brawn is there in Pitt’s obvious good physical shape, and in his serious facial expressions we see his brooding, even in the quieter moments where there is a sense of underlining tension about to explode. In his fight scenes he is ruthless and victorious. As a lover, protective and passionate. Pitt’s raw and visceral as Achilles.

Troy’s excess, however, is in celebrating honor and heroism at the expense of tragedy. E.V Rieu’s translation of The Illiad did not sacrifice tragedy for heroism, like Troy does, but movingly integrated themes of honouring country and the despair that accompanies warfare. Troy is thin on compassion and high on the glory of warriors leaving the scope of the drama reasonably fixed when The Illiad offered so much imaginative and thematic potential.

Then there are difficulties with the story, which lacks dramatic cohesion and build-up. When Achilles weeps over Patroclus after meeting with King Piram there has been little personal development between the two friends apart from a playful sword fight scene. There needed to be more at stake between Achilles and Patroclus for Achilles’ grief to be convincing and moving. When Hector and Achilles confront each other for the first time in a temple there isn’t a strong reason already developed for their antagonism so the effect is unclear and flat.

There are points in the movie which are inconsistent with the The Illiad, at least when comparing E.V. Rieu’s translation, and which suffer in light of that. The pivotal romance between Paris and Helen (Diane Kruger) is glamorised and heated up in typical Hollywood fashion. Helen’s husband Menelaus (Brendan Glesson) is gruff and burly, more Braveheart than Greek warrior (including an Irish accent!), and is unattractive when compared to the boyish good looks of Bloom’s Paris. No such overt favouritism did the translation follow, and neither was Helen’s life in Troy a happy one. For a passionate start Paris and Helen’s love doesn’t go anywhere after the second half.

The sense of Hector’s reluctance to fight doesn’t find parallels in The Illiad. In the translation Hector is proud, preferring the glory of fighting for country than succumbing to his wife’s protestations not to fight, a poignant element with a moving conclusion in Rieu’s translation. Eric Bana as Hector is a rather coy and conservative warrior than what could be expected. Scenes that are moving in The Illiad – Hector’s demise and Achilles conciliation with King Piram – lose faith with Homer and lack involving drama.

We sometimes get facilely and incredulous situations: James Horner’s horribly inappropriate score that makes the battle scenes feel like they’re more for fun than horror or heroism, and the accents in a Greek setting – sometimes noticeably thick Australian and Irish accents are the main culprits, but English, German and Scottish nationalities also appear.

No where in Troy are startling vistas and images of the "gods" intervening in the affairs of man so scintillating sketched in Homer’s pictorial (just imagine the visual feast, if handled properly). Neither are there the striking speeches that were spoken during warfare, and the fear fighters expressed during battle, which might pose a credibility problem for the modern viewer, but which could add a layer of meaning that wouldn’t necessarily be too much of a stretch for the imagination considering this is set thousands of years ago.

Troy has one basic theme – the memory of warriors immortalised – and it keeps to that focus. However, the consequence of pride is a theme of Homer that’s almost forgotten here, at most skirted around. The Greeks thought pride was mankind’s primary problem and this distinction in Troy is seen in Agamemnon, and in Achilles, but which the film fails to distinguish in light of the blaze of fighting glory.