(Review originally written at 5 July 2005)
"Troy" is a movie that will not live long on in the memory. There are several problems with the movie but yet it serves its purpose well; to bring some popcorn-entertainment.
First problem I had with the movie was the story. This version of the famous the Iliad is extremely Hollywood-ized, including a typical Hollywood like love-story. The 'villains' are also stereotypical, which brings me to another problem, who was actually supposed to be the main hero and villain? Brad Pitt's character Achilles is way too arrogant to sympathies for and Eric Bana's role is too small and uninteresting to regard him as the big hero. The story never picks sides, so with as a result that the movie is almost like a documentary like observation. Only problem is that it is not very good documentary material. They simply took too many liberties with the story for my taste.
But seriously, this doesn't take away that this movie is entertaining to watch. OK the movie is not really epic in terms of the battles or story but the man-against-man fights are well choreographed and spectacular to watch. Most certainly the highlights of the movie.
The movie is filled with some big names in both small and large roles. Brian Cox is unfortunately a bit overacting at times and Diane Kruger is not perfect enough to play Helen. Helen is supposed to be the most beautiful woman to have ever lived, I agree with Wolgang Petersen on this one, the Helen character should have never been showed in the movie, no actress can meet the expectation of all the people in the audience in terms of beauty. Best actor of the movie for me was Peter O'Toole. It was nice to see him in a big production again and the same goes for Julian Glover.
But why oh why did they ever rejected Gabriel Yared's musical score? James Horner's score is mostly unfitting at times and once again sounds too much like most of his other work.
The movie is simply at times a too much of an epic-wannabee. It never succeeds in creating an epic feeling, or any really memorable sequences. I think we can conclude that Wolfgang Petersen was simply not the right man to direct this movie. Still it's way too harsh to call the movie a disappointment or failure.
Expect to be entertained and maybe impressed at times but don't expect to be blown away by it.
7/10
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