Also the title of an
unremittingly dire adaptation of the
Iliad recently unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses. A particularly cynical plot, it used the bait and hook of good actors and a reasonably well regarded director to lure you in, defenceless, into almost three hours of some truly terrible
costume drama.
I refuse to include spoiler space for this tripe: if you don't know the story, you're not educated enough to be allowed near a PC anyway. In any case, nothing can spoil what is already a thoroughly rotten experience. I urge you to read on even if you had been planning to see this movie, as I am eager to discourage you from such a foolish waste of your precious time, or at least lower your expectations enough to make the ordeal somewhat less painful. If after all this you still don't want to know what happens, look away now and abandon all hope.
Performances
I suspect I am not alone in rushing to see this movie primarily because it will probably be Peter O'Toole's last. I knew he was extremely unwell, but so was Ollie Reed while making Gladiator, and that worked out better than alright. Not so here. It was heart-rending seeing one of my acting heroes totter on and off screen without any of the impish charisma he is so loved for. Gaunt, pale, with visible cataracts, he looks, sounds and moves like a sick old man who should have been left alone. Goodbye Peter - this is not how I want to remember you.
Brad Pitt, I think, will put this one right up there with Legends of the Fall on the list of films he doesn't want to talk about - but, credit where it's due, his Achilles was the only consistently decent male performance. Given some truly terrible lines to work with, he made the best out of a surprising number of them.
Almost as bad as seeing Peter O'Toole overreach himself was watching Brian Cox absolutely humiliate himself with a hammy, overdone, unconvincing job of Agamemnon. Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus wasn't bad, but had very little screen time. Among the other Greeks, Sean Bean was simply thrown away on a tiny handful of badly scripted scenes as Odysseus (and frankly looked like he was a bit embarrassed to be caught on tape), the character of Ajax was reduced to an Obelix-like caricature with no substance and no lines, Patroclus was a snivelling little runt badly played by Garrett Hedlund and John Shrapnel was playing up to Brian Cox and was therefore abysmally bad as Nestor.
Things did not go much better for the Trojans. It pains me to say it because they're both such lovely blokes, but Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom really can't fucking act. Scenes with just the two of them in particular just made you want to run away and hide. No other "names" in the Trojan lines, but whoever they were, they were all pretty bad.
One thing that particularly threw me was how ugly Helen was - the German model picked from a line-up to play her apparently had to put on 7kg to come up to normal human standards, but was still scrawny, with a pinched expression and no acting ability whatsoever. Saffron Burrows, a normally ravishing and competent actress, looked like she hasn't had a decent meal in a couple of years, and never seemed to actually get going - even as she was delivering her lines she looked like she was still waiting for the call to action. A small ray of light appeared in the form of Rose Byrne, a pretty young thing who gave a very respectable performance as Briseis, helped by having some of the only decent lines in the script. The only other female speaking part was that of Thetis, a tiny cameo executed with predictable charm by the still very beautiful Julie Christie.
Production
This section should really be broken down into two parts: quality and accuracy.
In terms of quality here isn't really much to quibble with. The cinematography was decent enough, the sets were appropriately grandiose, the costumes were shiny and spangled, the stunts were competent, the battle scenes large. But after The Lord Of The Rings and even Gladiator (which really set the tone for these costume drama war films anyway), that's simply not enough. I can't think of a single stunt or effect that impressed me, and while the city of Troy sets were large and obviously designed to impress, they had none of the imaginative flare of Peter Jackson's Minas Tirith.
From the point of view of historical accuracy, on the other hand, it was an absolute shambles. OK, I do realise that not many people know or care what ancient Greek armour looks like, and frankly we don't even have very good evidence for the period we assume includes the Trojan War. But not to get even a single sword design right? Not an urn, not a sandal, not a tent - it's all made up bollocks! The ships have hulls, the soldiers wear iron armour, the royal palace of Troy looks like the bastard child of Crete and Egypt. Just to give you an idea how bloody, well, Hollywood-ised it all was: everyone wears these incredibly elaborate, bejewelled, embroidered and bespangled clothes to show how rich they are. At the same time, none of the robes are hemmed - they are left to fray and dangle, presumably in deference to the sartorial incompetence of the ancients. It's just pathetic.
Story
Here is where it all goes seriously pear shaped.
The Iliad is, like, the greatest war epic ever told, yeah?
It's a story known, quoted and loved by millions over countless generations, no?
So, you'd think they wouldn't try and improve on it, right?
WRONG!
They re-wrote the Iliad, I kid you not. Remember Aeneas? They didn't. And the bit where Achilles kills the Queen of the Amazons? She wasn't even there. Oh, and Hecuba? No such person. Kassandra? Never heard of her.
Menelaus dies in the first half hour. Who needs him to found Sparta? Agamemnon hangs on a bit longer but is ultimately never allowed to return home and be slaughtered by his wife as nature intended. Achilles lives right up until the sack of Troy (huh?), at which point he is killed by Paris, who then gets off scot free with Helen!
I don't see why David Benioff even bothered calling the film Troy - he obviously didn't like the original story. Whereas the Iliad is the foundation myth of Greek nationhood, and naturally presents the Greeks in a noble and heroic light, the producers here obviously felt that modern audiences will identify better with the besieged Trojans. So kills off all those nasty Greeks and leave enough of a happy ending at the end for Troy II to be just vaguely feasible. It's a bit like making Hamlet and having him live happily ever after with Ophelia because you don't like sad stories - why, I ask you, bother? If you don't think the original story is good enough for you, leave it the crud alone! We like it just fine, thankyouverymuch!
Even had Benioff adhered to the letter of the story, I don't think he would have made anything very watchable from the original text. The dialogue feels like it was written by a committee: one moment surprisingly pithy, then without warning plummeting into the very depths of hyperbolic, stilted nonsense.
It's a very, very bad movie. Don't bother with it. Really.
Vital statistics:
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen.
Produced by Winston Azzopardi, Wolfgang Petersen, Diana Rathbun and Colin Wilson.
Partial Cast List:
Brian Cox - Agamemnon
Brad Pitt - Achilles
John Shrapnel - Nestor
Brendan Gleeson - Menelaus
Diane Kruger - Helen
Eric Bana - Hector
Orlando Bloom - Paris
Garrett Hedlund - Patroclus
Sean Bean - Odysseus
Julie Christie - Thetis
Peter O'Toole - Priam
Saffron Burrows - Andromache
Rose Byrne - Briseis
Tyler Mane - Ajax