Boy Troy

[rachelmanija]

A friend dragged me to TROY, over my protests. Afterward, he pointed out that at least it hadn't been CON AIR, which he also dragged me to. I'm going to get back at him, though, and haul him to an anime, samurai, or kung fu movie, none of which are genres he enjoys.

I had been looking forward to TROY since seeing the first preview, which had no dialogue. Then I saw the second preview, which had dialogue, and decided not to see the movie. That sums up my reaction to the film. As long as no one speaks, it's pretty decent, and there are some beautiful and spectacular shots of Greek seas, burning cities, and Brad Pitt's ass. Then they open their mouths, and the groaning and the whispering of sarcastic comments to one's seatmate begins.

The only exception to this is a scene where Peter O'Toole as Priam begs Brad Pitt as Achilles for the body of his son. O'Toole's motivation was clearly "Oops, I'm old now and I haven't yet played King Lear." It's a good scene.

Otherwise, the dialogue is horrid: stilted, anachronistic, clunky, and generally embarassing. The sentiments and philosophies expressed by most of the characters are those of contemporary Hollywood screenwriters, not those of ancient Greeks or Trojans. The romances are uniformly heterosexual, with a nauseating blend of 1950s and 2000s genuflection to the Holy Family, and lead to one of the worst death scenes ever (you'll know it when you see it).

The movie, by the way, does not conform to the story, and the changes are ointless and stupid. For instance, they leave out Cassandra and instead devote a huge amount of screen time to a woman named Briseis whom Achilles falls sappily in love with. (Bleah.)

Orlando Bloom (Paris) is so awful here and boring in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN that I'm beginning to think his performance as Legolas was created by CGI. He and Patrocles posture and quiver and widen their eyes like the dueling pretty boys they are. Helen is blank and vapid as a photo of a supermodel. She's pretty enough, in a bland and unerotic way, but that face would have launched two ships at the most. Liv Tyler, now, she could launch a thousand without wearing makeup.

Brad Pitt, as Achilles, is also blank and vapid, but also smug and annoying. I think he's a talented actor, but he's only good in roles that require him to be a little edgy, a little crazy, or a scoundrel of some kind. He's a character actor with a flair for comedy trapped in a leading man's body: think TWELVE MONKEYS, FIGHT CLUB, SNATCH, even THELMA AND LOUISE. When required to be Important, as he is in TROY, he falls into a dreadful stiff pretentiousness, like a wax statue.

Sean Bean as Odysseus has very little to do, but on the other hand he and Eric Bana as Hector are the only people in the entire movie who are remotely convincing as soldiers. Bean in particular exudes "tired old campaigner" like nobody's business. Unfortunately, though people keep remarking on how clever he is, we never actually see him do anything clever. Brad Pitt is cut and buff and all that, but like a gym rat, not like the world's greatest warrior. Which leads me to the next problem: the fight scenes.

In LORD OF THE RINGS, I absolutely believed that Aragorn was a great swordfighter and Boromir was pretty darn good. I could see strategy and skill and how the fights were won and lost. In TROY, the fights are just people bashing each other, and there's no sense of why one person is better or cannier than another. Pitt proves that he's the greatest warrior of all by occasionally leaping into the air, generally without apparent purpose. "Wasted motion," I began thinking. "Someone should dart in and skewer him."

There's a shot at the end showing Achilles' heel that is prettily framed and has some visual wit for those who know the story. But wit, alas, is entirely absent from the rest of the movie.

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I remember an article a good number of years back in Analog analyzing beauty through the "millihelen," which came to the conclusion that Helen was indeed unrivaled. I wish I'd photocopied it (it was in an issue in my HS library) for future reference. It was quite funny.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

"Orlando Bloom (Paris) is so awful here and boring in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN that I'm beginning to think his performance as Legolas was created by CGI."

I wondered after PIRATES, although I was guessing director not CGI.

[larryhammer]

Not all the changes were pointless, I'd argue. The time compression, for dramatic purposes, for one. And as much as she's my favorite character, I see why, to avoid diffusing the dramatic tension, you'd want to trim Cassandra — or rather, combine her character's role with Breseis. Many of the changes, however, are either pointless or the consequence of earlier changes not completely thought through. (Text below in white to hide spoilers — highlight to read.)

Breseis's scene during the sack is worth examining. In the original, it's Cassandra and Ajax's scene. They combined Cassandra and Breseis, in part to beef up a woman's role instead of giving two half-roles to two actresses. Ajax, they had killed off earlier because they wanted to limit the number of named characters and needed for the drama to slay named characters in battle. Having her kill Agamemnon was bizarre, but at least they good good dramatic mileage out of it (instead of waiting for Achilles to rescue her), ditto the dramatic ironies around Paris killing Achilles. That all said, the love affair between Achilles and Breseis was just plain silly.

I agree about a lot of the dialog, and Achilles's hoplite-fu was odd indeed. But I thought Bloom did a good job of showing Paris as the wuss he is in the original.

My reaction is: nice eye candy, check all knowledge of Homer at the door, along with your brain.

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I was fine with the time compression. But I like Cassandra much better than that irritating Briseis. They left her out because she doesn't make sense if the Gods aren't real, and the movie, in a fit of stupidity and pandering, decided that the Gods aren't real. I don't mean that they should have shown them; but at least the belief of the characters should have made them palpable, and we could have seen the Gods acting in unseen ways.

I read the scene in the Iliad yesterday, where Patrocles is unstoppable until Apollo rips off his helmet and breastplate, and then some unnamed soldier stabs him in the back. Now that's powerful.

As for Paris, he's a difficult character whom everyone is bound to dislike solely because of his actions. But he should at least be sexy, so you can see why Helen took off with him. If he's nothing but an eyebrow-twitching, eye-bugging, whiny, cowardly git, and Helen is a plastic Barbie, you want to hide under your seat every time either one of them appeared onscreen.

(One of the things I enjoyed about Eric Bana's performance is that he didn't seem to _like_ Paris, but looked at him as one would on a family member who's a junkie or petty criminal or some such, who you know will drag you down with them but whom you've decided to stand up for many years ago, no matter how worthless he is.)

[janni.livejournal.com]

The only exception to this is a scene where Peter O'Toole as Priam begs Brad Pitt as Achilles for the body of his son.

I thought this was wonderfully creepy and well-done.

Agree on the death scene in question, which had all of us muttering, "Just die, already."

[larryhammer]

It looked like the director was challening Bottom's Pyramus.

---L.