Troy (2004) often gets a bum rap. Sure, it’s silly, pretentious, and it takes the entire notion of Greek gods and tosses them into the Aegean, but all that not withstanding, it’s a decent swords-and-sandals epic.
The fable of Troy is one of those stories that most people simply grow up with, absorbing it through their pores until they can recite at least one major point by heart: always look a gift horse in the mouth. Any number of people can recite “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships...?”
The film recounts the star-crossed lovers Paris (Orlando Bloom, ugh), prince of Troy, and Helen (Diane Kruger, sigh), wife of Spartan king Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson, hurrah). Paris smuggles Helen back with him to Troy, and the cuckolded Menelaus goes to his brother, big Greek King Agamemnon (Brian Cox, double hurrah) and whines. Agamemnon is actually overjoyed at this turn of events, since he’s bent on conquering the known world and didn’t like the peace treaty between Sparta and Troy. War!
A single love story is insufficient for a film of this size, so in addition to Paris and Helen, we get Hector (Eric Bana) and his wife Andromache (Saffron Burrows), and Achilles (Brad Pitt) romancing himself. Oh, and he tumbles for Briseis (Rose Byrne) a priestess of Troy, and this is the true romance of the film.
Seriously. You look at Paris and Helen, and that’s just the fated romance that launches the plot. They’re just too narcissistic to be relatable, especially as portrayed here. These are two people so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t even consider for a moment the full ramifications of what they’ve done. Their obsession with each other will lead to thousands being slaughtered and an entire city-state being erased from the face of the earth, yet all they care about is making googly-eyes with each other. I think Petersen realized this but ultimately didn’t want to rub our noses in it, so no one bitch-slaps these two as would have been the correct and appropriate thing to do.
Then there’s Hector, the noble warrior, and Andromache, his wife who must see him head off to battle, always wondering whether this is the one from which he won’t return. Hector is so much fuller a character here, in large part because Bana can act circles around Bloom (but then, who can’t?), but also because this is the more noble and mature relationship. These aren’t teens lost in the rapture of each other; they are adults facing the hard realities of their lives. In the real world, you can’t help but believe that Hector would have cut off Paris’s head (brother or no), and given both it and Helen back to Menelaus just to stop the war.
Alas...
And then there’s Achilles, a man fighting just for the sake of fighting. He’s so much better than anyone else he’s bored by it all. Brad Pitt nails it. This is the film that made me appreciate just how much Pitt puts into his craft. He effortlessly sells, in the film’s opening sequence, just how completely bad-ass Achilles is. Yes, he’s got those big pouty lips, but they’re perfectly in keeping with his characterization of Achilles. He has Paris’s narcissism combined with Hector’s fighting skills, a lethal and dangerous combination.
His obsession with glory will bring him to Briseis and to the emotional core of the film. Yes, it’s clichéd, and yes, it’s maybe a shade or two too sweet, but I was good with it, mostly because it doesn’t demand a ton of screen time.
As for the rest of the film, it moves along at a decent clip. The sets are spectacular, the photography is spectacular, the battle sequences are spectacular, and the sheer spectacle is spectacular. This film is a spectacle. What else were you expecting?
Many of the actors chew enormous chunks of scenery. Peter O’Toole as Priam, king of Troy, pontificates hither and yon. Indeed, everyone in Troy represents the biggest problem with the film. Petersen, in giving up the myth of Troy and tossing out the gods, grounds the film in “reality,” but as a result you realize that in no real world would a teen romance be allowed to spark a war. Since Hector failed to deliver Paris’s head, Priam would have tossed him (and Helen) over the city walls and asked of the Greeks, “Are we good?” That he’s willing to risk his entire nation and all of its inhabitants, just so his young son can have a bit of nookie, stretches credibility waaay too far.
This is easier to swallow when it’s about fickle gods playing with human fate.
In the end, I tuned out the stupid romance, appreciated the mature relationship, and accepted the cliché of the warrior finding peace with the priestess. At least in the original edit.
Then I saw the director’s cut. Which is horrible. The timing of scene after scene now feels all wrong. The parts that were horrible are even more so. Even Diane Kruger nude couldn’t save the expanded scenes between her and Orlando Bloom, and that Bloom is on screen more is just terrible. Really, really, I don’t like him as an actor, and nothing here improves my opinion.
Fight sequences that were once (relatively) tightly edited are now clumsy. The key showdown between Hector and Achilles doesn’t have the same flow. The entire film is just bloated, and an example of why any disk marked “director’s cut” should be destroyed (except those by Ridley Scott, because he just sort of rules when it comes to alternate edits of his films).
And the music... Gag, what the hell happened? James Horner’s score for Troy is the subject of much hatred, but I always felt it was undeserved. Even if it was somewhat derivative and repetitive of his past work, it soared in the right spots and did its job. (And yes, I’ve heard Gabriel Yared’s original score, and it’s a snore in comparison.) A favored moment is when the Trojan horse is dragged into Troy. The music is both majestic and tragic. It foreshadows the destruction to come while sweeping up the jubilation the doomed residents of Troy evince.
In the director’s cut, it’s gone. Because scenes are longer, the original music isn’t long enough, so cues are repeated over and over. Hell, they even insert Danny Elfman music from Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes. Good grief...
So, be warned: Enjoy DVD of the original, theatrical cut of Troy. It might be a shade pompous, but it’s an enjoyable spectacle (there’s that word again). Avoid like the plague the director’s cut, either on DVD or Blu-Ray; it’s horrible and all copies should be melted.
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