In Ancient Greece, a loose alliance of the land's Kings under the powerful and ruthless Agamemnon is tested when Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta, runs away with Paris, princeof the walled citadel of Troy, sparking the greatest war of ancient times.
Based on a millennia-old poetic novel, with a $200 million budget, a shedfull of CGI and the best-known pin-up in Hollywood, there was always plenty of room here for both splendour and mistakes. But having a passion for Ray Harryhausen Greek sagas and epics in general, I went along willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, and frankly that's the mood to go in.
If you go looking for plot-holes you could drive a wooden horse through, you'll find plenty; if you're looking for adherence to source material, you'll be disappointed: but just go looking for and old-fashioned, action-filled, fairly shallow epic and you should enjoy the evening.
Part of the problem actually IS the source material. An ancient story of ancient times, of a people with very different attitudes from ours to war and glory. Few characters inspire empathy and this is before a ten-year campaign gets compressed into two and a half hours. It's only reasonable that the story had to be seriously tinkered with and it's pretty obvious that some of that works and some of it doesn't.
Then there's Brad Pitt. Playing Achilles, greatest warrior of his time, talisman to the Greeks, proud, distant, cold, he bows to no man, fuelled by the desire to carve himself immortality. Yet during the war, he finds grief and doubt and begins to question his own ways and being. It was brave to cast a man better known as a star than an actor, with such a high and modern profile, and Pitt proves only just barely up to the task. In the action sequences, albeit helped by some brilliant camerawork, he is excellent. His movements in battle-combat scenes are quick, eccentric and brutal and he does truly convince as a master warrior. But in the scenes of self-doubt, uncertainty and introspection he doesn't really carry the audience with him. When O'Toole, Bean and Bana stare horrified or shocked into the camera we see the emotions and thoughts of their characters flickering in their eyes. Brad Pitt staring is just Brad Pitt staring.
That said, the script does screw him out of the main drama of Achilles' story. Hector, Prince of Troy wants to face Achilles, hoping that slaying the Greek hero will bring an end to the war but Achilles, bored of taking orders, stays sulking in his tent and instead his protege Patroclaus faces Hector, dressed in Achilles' suit of armour and is killed. This drives Achilles to pour his grief and guilt into furious hatred of Hector.
He demands to fight Hector and later, in the heat of his emotion, commits an act of desecration that breaks all rules of battlefield honour. This earns him the contempt of the Trojans, tarnishes his reputation with the Greeks and leads Achilles himself - once he realises the enormity of his act - into self-doubt and recrimination. Except that in the original story Patroclaus is Achilles' best friend and lover and here he is relegated to being a favourite cousin.
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Presumably, this is so middle America doesn't have a stroke and Brad Pitt doesn't have to play gay, but it does steal the emotional resonance from Achilles' grief and actions and, what should be turning point in his tale when the hero of soldiers realises he has broken his own code of honour and is wracked with regret and self-doubt becomes almost a throwaway part of the movie with Achilles escaping condemnation and having a little sniffle out the back of his own tent instead.
So the loyalty of the audience, which should be wavering back and forth, stays pretty solidly with Hector, thanks in no part to Eric Bana's fierce, whole-hearted performance. Brian Cox as Agamemnon, using Helen as an excuse to take Troy and extend his power base is wily, but overplayed. Cox is a British Al Pacino, a great actor if sat upon hard enough, otherwise liable to ham, and here Petersen is obviously too busy to sit for long.
Peter O'Toole, as King Priam of Troy, fares far better. He's one of the few characters that we care for ( a tribute to O'Toole's heartfelt acting, as Priam's actually a terrible decision-maker). Anchoring the Greeks through Cox's shouting and Pitt's moody glaring, is Sean Bean as the tricksy Odysseus, wh formulates the idea of the wooden horse to try and prevent a massacre of his men at the Trojan walls. Bean's subtle but grounded performance easily makes him the only Greek leader that non-Pitt fans will be backing. And, considering that in "The Friendship Of The Ring" he gave a masterclass in how to portray a troubled, haunted, morally fractured warrior, you can't help wondering if - had Brad Pitt spent less time in the gym and more time comparing notes with his elders and betters - Achilles might have risen from the screen to better earn his reputation.
The CGI effects work well and the thousand-ship fleet is excellent. The battle scenes are as swift, bloody, balletic and horrifically glorious as the ancient Greeks would have expected. So go to this film knowing that it is not "Gladiator", it doesn't have a central powerhouse performance and it doesn't truly engage on an emotional level. But do go. "Troy" IS a good film. It's just a shame it wasn't a great one when so many of the ingredients were there.
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