troy film review essay

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"Troy" is based on the epic poem The Iliad by Homer, according to the credits. Homer's estate should sue. The movie sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie cliches and demonstrates that we're getting tired of computer-generated armies. Better a couple of hundred sweaty warriors than two masses of 50,000 men marching toward one another across a sea of special effects.

The movie recounts the legend of the Trojan War, as the fortress city is attacked by a Greek army led by Menelaus of Sparta and Agamemnon of Mycenae. The war has become necessary because of the lust of the young Trojan prince named Paris ( Orlando Bloom ), who while during a peace mission to Sparta, seduces the city-state's queen, Helen ( Diane Kruger ).

This action understandably annoys Helen's husband, Menelaus ( Brendan Gleeson ), not to mention Paris' brother Hector ( Eric Bana ), who points out, quite correctly, that when you visit a king on a peace mission, it is counterproductive to leave with his wife.

What the movie doesn't explain is why Helen would leave with Paris after an acquaintanceship of a few nights. Is it because her loins throb with passion for a hero? No, because she tells him: "I don't want a hero. I want a man I can grow old with." Not in Greek myth, you don't. If you believe Helen of Troy could actually tell Paris anything remotely like that, you will probably also agree that the second night he slipped into her boudoir, she told him, "Last night was a mistake."

The seduction of Helen is the curtain-raiser for the main story, which involves vast Greek armies laying siege to the impenetrable city. Chief among their leaders is Achilles, said to be the greatest warrior of all time, but played by Brad Pitt as if he doesn't believe it. If Achilles was anything, he was a man who believed his own press releases. Heroes are not introspective in Greek drama, they do not have second thoughts, and they are not conflicted.

Achilles is all of these things. He mopes on the flanks of the Greek army with his own independent band of fighters, carrying out a separate diplomatic policy, kind of like Ollie North. He thinks Agamemnon is a poor leader with bad strategy and doesn't really get worked up until his beloved cousin Patroclus ( Garrett Hedlund ) is killed in battle.

Patroclus, who looks a little like Achilles, wears his helmet and armor to fool the enemy, and until the helmet is removed everyone thinks that Achilles has been slain. So dramatic is that development that the movie shows perhaps 100,000 men in hand-to-hand combat, and then completely forgets them in order to focus on the Patroclus battle scene, with everybody standing around like during a fight on the playground.

Pitt is a good actor and a handsome man, and he worked out for six months to get buff for the role, but Achilles is not a character he inhabits comfortably. Say what you will about Charlton Heston and Victor Mature , but one good way to carry off a sword-and-sandal epic is to be filmed by a camera down around your knees, while you intone quasi-formal prose in a heroic baritone. Pitt is modern, nuanced, introspective; he brings complexity to a role where it is not required.

By treating Achilles and the other characters as if they were human, instead of the larger-than-life creations of Greek myth, director Wolfgang Petersen miscalculates. What happens in Greek myth cannot happen between psychologically plausible characters. That's the whole point of myth. Great films like Michael Cacoyannis' " Elektra ," about the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War, know that and use a stark dramatic approach that is deliberately stylized. Of course, "Elektra" wouldn't work for a multiplex audience, but then maybe it shouldn't.

The best scene in the movie has Peter O'Toole creating an island of drama and emotion in the middle of all that plodding dialogue. He plays old King Priam of Troy, who at night ventures outside his walls and into the enemy camp, surprising Achilles in his tent. Achilles has defeated Priam's son Hector in hand-to-hand combat before the walls of Troy, and dragged his body back to camp behind his chariot. Now Priam asks that the body be returned for proper preparation and burial. This scene is given the time and attention it needs to build its mood, and we believe it when Achilles tells Priam, "You're a far better king than the one who leads this army." O'Toole's presence is a reminder of " Lawrence of Arabia " (1962), which I saw again two weeks ago, and which proved that patience with dialogue and character is more important than action in making war movies work.

As for the Greek cities themselves, a cliche from the old Hollywood epics has remained intact. This is the convention that whenever a battle of great drama takes place, all the important characters have box seats for it. When Achilles battles Hector before the walls of Troy, for example, Priam and his family have a sort of viewing stand right at the front of the palace, and we get the usual crowd reaction shots, some of them awkward closeups of actresses told to look grieved.

In a way, "Troy" resembles " The Alamo ." Both are about fortresses under siege. Both are defeated because of faulty night watchmen. The Mexicans sneak up on the Alamo undetected, and absolutely nobody is awake to see the Greeks climbing out of the Trojan Horse. One difference between the two movies is that Billy Bob Thornton and the other "Alamo" actors are given evocative dialogue, and deliver it well, while "Troy" provides dialogue that probably cannot be delivered well because it would sound even sillier that way.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Troy (2004)

Rated R for graphic violence and some sexuality/nudity.

163 minutes

Brad Pitt as Achilles

Orlando Bloom as Paris

Eric Bana as Hector

Diane Kruger as Helen

Sean Bean as Odysseus

Brian Cox as Agamemnon

Peter O'Toole as Priam

Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus

Saffron Burrows as Andreomache

Directed by

Wolfgang Petersen
David Benioff

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UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

Troy (2004) – Wolfgang Petersen – Film Review Part 1

So I have been privileged to write a ten year retrospective review of Troy (2004) for Kenneth R. Morefield’s film review website, 1morefilmblog.com . The review ended up running into three parts. Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

“In any case, this poem is a miracle. Its bitterness is the only justifiable bitterness, for it springs from the subjections of the human spirit to force, that is, in the last analysis, to matter. This subjection is the common lot, although each spirit will bear it differently, in proportion to its own virtue. No one in the Iliad is spared by it, as no one on earth is. No one who succumbs to it is by virtue of this fact regarded with contempt. Whoever, within his own soul and in human relations, escapes the dominion of force is loved but loved sorrowfully because of the threat to destruction that constantly hangs over him.”

– Simone Weil

_______________________________________________

It has now been ten years since Wolfgang Petersen’s old-fashionedly classic film on the Trojan War was released. In hindsight, some of the controversy that roiled round the film at the time now seems rather silly. But then much of the criticism the film took was much worse than silly. Much of it consisted of a sort of “chronological snobbery” in which critics produced excoriations upon the story’s outdated ideas. Often a film will inevitably include a certain amount of modern sensibility adapted to the telling of an ancient story. But no serious film critic should ever criticize a film for those cases when, against the odds, it successfully avoids doing so. Complaining that the filming of a story, thousands of years old, is not anachronistic enough is just plain absurd.

I’ll make two admissions up front. First, I enjoyed Troy very much. In spite of its changes to the narrative, it kept the spirit of the story as much as a film could be expected to do so. Second, I felt it was rather embarrassing to read many of the reviews that were written about it back in 2004.

“The main problem with this film, wrote Adrian MacKinder (for Future Movies ) tendentiously, “is that the central story itself doesn’t really lend itself to a modern audience.” If, like me, you are rather hoping that MacKinder was intending this strange statement as a criticism of the modern audience, he quickly lays any such hopes to waste and continues: “Trouble is, the character of Achilles isn’t really very nice and while that needn’t be an issue in itself, the developments of the narrative elements that the script has drawn from the original source make it very difficult to find sympathy for his cause.”

It is difficult to calculate just how many assumptions MacKinder had to get horribly wrong in order to write a conclusion like that and then to mean it as a criticism of a film based on the Iliad . Does he not realize that Homer never intended Achilles to be very nice? Does he believe that “a modern audience” always demands the main character be one that they can “find sympathy” for? Above all, has MacKinder ever wondered if just maybe Achilles not being very nice is, perhaps, one of the entire points of the entire story? (“Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles / murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, / hurling down to the House of Death many sturdy souls / great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, / feats for the dogs and birds …” – Fagles, Book I, 1-5.) Has he considered that the question of whether Achilles will change or not has something to do with why so many human beings across the history of time have so loved this story?

But MacKinder is not alone. The contempt with which some of Troy ’s reviewers treated the Iliad was at least honest. They were the brighter film critics who at least understood when they were criticizing Homer himself. Their comments would range anywhere from summarily dismissive (“The movie is loosely inspired by Homer’s ‘The Iliad,’ the least rousing of the famous bard’s major poems about the Greek conflicts and the intervention of the gods.” – David Keyes, Cinemaphile ) to contemptuously enlightened (“What modern audience would buy the notion of Zeus meddling, U.N.-style, in warfare between humans?” – Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com).

The advantage that Keyes and Zacharek possess over other film reviewers is some apparent knowledge of the literary source. There is obviously a problem here. I suggest that it is cultural in nature while also informative for us now. In order to think a little deeper about this, I will first discuss some of the criticisms of the film, and then for the second part of this essay, I will discuss what classical themes the film gets right.

Now to complain that Brad Pitt made Achilles too arrogant, narcissistic, egomaniacal, moody or petulant is one thing. The Achilles of the Iliad was all those things and to criticize Troy for portraying him this way is merely criticizing Homer.

“‘Wine-bibber,’ he cried, ‘with the face of a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the host in fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this as you do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over a feeble folk’ … Achilles abode at his ships and nursed his anger. He went not to the honourable assembly, and sallied not forth to fight, but gnawed at his own heart, pining for battle and the war-cry.” (Butler, Book I, pgs. 7, 12.)

In contrast, dear old Roger Ebert, God bless him, thought that Pitt made Achilles too complex. “If Achilles was anything,” Ebert wrote in the Chicago-Sun Times , “he was a man who believed his own press releases. Heroes are not introspective in Greek drama, they do not have second thoughts, and they are not conflicted … Pitt is modern, nuanced, introspective; he brings complexity to a role where it is not required.”

But a further problem is that, in order to make this criticism, you have to ignore that Achilles, of both the Iliad and of the film, changes. His character is rare in ancient Greek literature, and as compared to almost everyone else in the story, in that he is introspective enough to learn something from what happens during the war. And to criticize Troy for making Achilles unlikable is to remain utterly and determinedly unconscious of how his initial unlikability serves the story.

For instance, Bob Smithouser (Focus on the Family’s PluggedIn ) disliked the film because he disliked Achilles’ moral character: “Because Achilles is played by Brad Pitt, the character may come across as more heroic than he should. He’s like a modern-day, prima donna athlete — a prideful, conscienceless free agent out for personal glory. He just wants his name in the record books. That would be no big deal if his selfishness proved to be his downfall. But this isn’t a cautionary tale.” No? Then what kind of tale is it?

Orlando Bloom’s main task as Paris was to be weak, naive and impulsive and he was. Remember, in the Iliad , this a romance where Helen refers to Paris by saying “This fellow was never yet to be depended upon, nor never will be, and he will surely reap what he has sown.” (Butler, Book VI, pg. 76.) Helen’s character is, in fact, questionable in Homer in ways that she is not in the film. In the Iliad , after going with Paris to Troy, she starts wishing for her own husband again (Fagles, Book III, 167-174). And let’s not forget Hector’s tirade at Paris upon finding him huddling behind the walls of the city:

“Hector raked his brother with insults, stinging taunts: ‘Paris, appalling Paris! Our prince of beauty – mad for women, you lure them all to ruin! Would to god you’d never been born, died unwed. That’s all I’d ask. Better that way by far than to have you strutting here, an outrage – a mockery in the eyes of all our enemies. Why, the long-haired Achaeans must be roaring with laughter! They thought you the bravest champion we could field, and just because of the handsome luster on your limbs, but you have no pith, no fighting strength inside you … So, you can’t stand up to the battling Menelaus? You’d soon feel his force, that man you robbed of his sumptuous, warm wife. No use to you then, the fine lyre and these, these gifts of Aphrodite, your long flowing locks and your striking looks, not when you roll and couple with the dust.” (Fagles, Book III, 43-65.)

Third, it is rather amazing how many different film critics claimed, wink wink, nudge nudge, that Petersen changed Homer’s story so that Achilles and Patroclus were cousins instead of lovers. Peter Rainer ( New York Magazine ) tells us that Achilles’ “character has been cleaned up for the movies, though. For one thing, Patroclus … is now his cousin – just in case all that Greek male bonding seemed suspect.” Emanuel Levy pointed out that the film “plays it safe” because “Patroclus is made to be Achilles’ cousin.” Alex von Tunzelmann ( The Guardian ) complained that Patroclus had “undergone a radical straightening process” which made her “wonder why they bothered making a film about ancient Greece in the first place.” Madeline Miller, author of the Achilles/Patroclus romance novel, The Song of Achilles , was overcome with indignation. “It was just incredible how they had to make Patroclus a younger cousin of Achilles,” she said. “They established a close kinship link between them, so that there wouldn’t be any possibility of an erotic dimension to Achilles’ feelings.” Tim Robey ( The Telegraph ), David Cornelius, Erik Childress (eFilmCritic.com), Gabriel Shanks ( Mixed Reviews ), David Keyes ( Cinemaphile ), James Keast ( Exclaim Magazine ) and Garth Franklin ( Dark Horizons ), among others, all made the same criticism, as if it were the most obvious thing about Troy.

It is true that, even since ancient times, some critics and historians have speculated on whether the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus might have been homosexual. But this idea has never risen above speculation and has been aptly summarized by classicist Camille Paglia as merely “a Hellenistic fantasy not in Homer.” The theory has obviously become more popular in modern times. Social theorist David Halperin has alleged that Achilles and Patroclus were homosexual. This is supposedly the only explanation for why Achilles is so angry when Patroclus is killed. But Halperin is the same theorist who also proclaims the evidence conclusive that David and Jonathan were lovers. The fact remains that speculating theorists like Halperin are the ones who are changing the story. Petersen, by having Achilles call Patroclus his cousin in the film, is following Homer. To criticize Petersen for “changing the story” in this way can be chalked down to one the dumbest criticisms of the film so far.

Yet another criticism was that the characters in Troy are … scantily clad. I was surprised, reading through the reviews, how many critics thought this was worth pointing out. Just in case you wouldn’t have guessed, a few of the heroes go shirtless. “Director Wolfgang Petersen,” declares Maryann Johanson ( Flick Filosopher ), “has clearly heard the cry throughout the land for more male nudity in Hollywood films.” “[T]hey are all too aesthetically perfect,” frets Dustin Putman, “with their hair coifed and flowing and their muscles bulging amidst metal armor, to pass themselves off as people who might have lived in approximately 1250 B.C. There are times, indeed, when ‘Troy’ seems more concerned with showing off its male cast member’s naked torsos.” James Kendrick (Q Network) thought the film was “undermined by the fact that most of the characters resemble gleaming supermodels in fashionable armor.” “Petersen’s skimpily-clad sirens are the men” Jonathan Romney points out for us in The Independent . “If all that matters to you is the prospect of seeing nearly three hours of hunky guys in leather miniskirts,” mocks Ken Hanke, “then this is the film for you.”

In comparison to much of Greek art that specifically depicted the heroes of the Iliad , Petersen’s film doesn’t even come close. Any minimal nudity in Troy is only a matter of seconds, and to notice every time a Greek hero goes shirtless is to have abnormally one track mind. If any critic wanted to insist upon artistic or historical accuracy in Troy , he could probably have made fun of the film for the opposite reason – its characters wearing too much clothing. It is unfortunate that showing skin in modern society must always mean sex and inevitably sends off red lights and alarm bells in the mind of the viewer. It makes one wonder whether our view of the human body is less healthy than that of the ancient Greeks.

Fifth, there are other ways in which modern sensibilities discourage critics from accepting the Iliad story as Petersen portrays it. In another variation of this complaint, we can read Hanke’s difficulty: “That even the most doting father and the most tolerant brother could possibly fall in line with this rather than pack Helen off back home and send Paris to his room for a few days is far harder to swallow than the idea of all this being the result of the machinations of constantly bickering gods and goddesses.” Havens (Film Jerk.com) understands the story in the same way: “Despite the pleas of his brother Hector, Paris refuses to give Helen up. Priam, the King of Troy and father to Hector and Paris, knows that if Helen is returned to Menelaus, he would also have to deliver his son to what is certain to be his execution, deciding to lead Troy into war.”

Yet it is made clear early in the film that Menelaus had only agreed to peace with Troy against the wishes of Agamemnon. And Agamemnon is absolutely enthused when Helen runs off with Paris – because she has finally provided his desired pretext for destroying Troy. It is with delight and laughter that Cox utters the line: “I always thought my brother’s wife was foolish woman, but she’s proved to be very useful.” Petersen is not making up this element of the story. Even in Homer, there are clear indications that the Greeks are much more interested in destroying Troy than in winning Helen back. There is one revealing scene when an important character says as much and then Agamemnon cheerfully agrees with him. (Butler, Book VII, pg. 89; Fagles, Book VII, 460-470.) Then there is another scene where Hector reasons to himself that offering to give back Helen would, at that point, accomplish nothing. (Butler, Book XXII, pg. 283; Fagles, Book XXII, 125-151.) In the film, the character of Paris, along with his belief that he is why the Greeks are at the city gates, is played almost humorously. The moment that Bloom’s Paris declares to everyone, “There won’t be a war! … Tomorrow morning I will challenge Menelaus for the right to Helen,” it is difficult not to laugh. Even Andromache gets this: “Fifty thousand Greeks didn’t cross the sea to watch your brother fight. You know this,” she warns her husband in a different scene.

Even at the point where Paris is about to fight Menelaus for Helen, Agamemnon has already added the condition that Troy must submit to his command. The real conflict in that scene is between Hector’s refusal to submit and Agamemnon’s demands. Unreality is when Paris interrupts them and insists “There is another way!” Agamemnon dismisses Paris as not worth his time. The only way Menelaus convinces Agamemnon to allow him to fight Paris for Helen is by agreeing in advance that they’ll take Troy regardless after Paris is dead. If you believe, along with Hanke and Havens, that the Trojan war is being fought over Helen, all you have to do is look at Brian Cox’s smile.

Even one of my favorite film reviewers, Jeffrey Overstreet ( Looking Closer ), cannot bring himself to excuse Hector for fighting Achilles. Overstreet writes that Hector “folds far too quickly after his initial protest of his brother’s hormone-driven foolishness. And when [Achilles] challenges him to a one-on-one … in front of the main gates, he goes out to accept the challenge in the name of some kind of ‘honor’ that out-ranks the importance of his wife, child, and the people depending on him for battlefield performance.” But Overstreet is not so much criticizing the film as he is criticizing the Iliad (to give him credit, he at least admits as much). And Overstreet is in good company, as Roger Ebert could not comprehend any of the scenes of single combat either. “So dramatic is that development,” Ebert wrote, “that the movie shows perhaps 100,000 men in hand-to-hand combat, and then completely forgets them in order to focus on the Patroclus battle scene, with everybody standing around like during a fight on the playground.”

Troy not only explicitly refers to this tradition in the very first scene of the film, but also explains it for the modern viewer. Before a battle in Thessaly, Agamemnon quips that he doesn’t want to watch another massacre and suggests: “Let’s settle this war in the old manner: your best fighter against my best.” “And if my man wins?,” asks the opposing king. “We’ll leave Thessaly for good,” responds Agamemnon. When Achilles refuses to fight for Agamemnon, Nestor changes his mind by arguing for the good that the single combat could accomplish in spite of Agamemnon’s greed: “Look at the men’s faces,” Nestor tells Achilles, “You can save hundreds of them. You can end this war with a swing of your sword. Let them go home to their wives.” Of course, this did not always happen with the understanding that both armies will quit and go home. But even during regular battles, single combat between opposing champions would often the turning that would determine the difference between winning and losing.

This is why Hector seeks out Ajax during one fight in the film, and it is why all the other men stop fighting each other to watch what they believe is Hector fighting Achilles. They are watching something important, because if one defeats the other, then they will mostly consider the battle decided. At the film’s climax, Hector is not committing suicide. The odds are against him given Achilles’ reputation, but if he were to kill Achilles in single combat, the war would likely be over. Agamemnon has already gone to great lengths to prove his army ineffectual without Achilles. How could Hector’s risking his life to try for that chance – a chance that if successful would save both his city and family – not be honorable? Hector’s decision to fight Achilles was not about his ego or about bragging rights. Achilles, in Hector’s eyes, represents the end of Troy. Hector is the best warrior that Troy has to offer – if anyone can, only he can stop Achilles. Both his very real sense of honor and his moral code (one that is quite different from that of Achilles) leave him with no other choice.

Furthermore, criticizing Priam and Hector for not forcing Paris to given Helen back to the Greeks is both short-sighted and unrealistic. Whenever they talked about doing so in the film, it was merely wishful thinking. Indeed, the film even has one scene where Hector physically stops Helen from going back to the Greeks. She tells him that the war is all her fault and so she is going to fix it by going back. Hector, by this time, has reconciled himself to the political and historical reality. “It’s too late for that now. Do you think Agamemnon cares about his brother’s marriage? This is about power, not love.” The insult to Menelaus (even greater than wife-stealing because it also involved a case of wife-stealing while under the hospitality and protection of the husband) was made as soon as Paris took her away. But even so, there is no reason to think that the insult itself was the cause of the war. The main point to keep in mind is that any consolidated political or imperial power would dearly have wanted to control Troy’s commanding position in Anatolia. If even the slightest insult could have been used as an excuse by Agamemnon, then it would have been used. This fact, along with archeological evidence of Troy’s being sacked, only serves to confirm the historical events that served as the basis for Homer’s story. In his A History of Greece , historian Cyril E. Robinson writes:

“Troy stood in a commanding position, controlling the entrance to the Hellespont. Upon a site so strategic many early cities had risen and fallen. Soon after 1300 the last of the important settlements rose on this spot upon the ruins of a predecessor which had enjoyed much contact with Mycenae before falling victim to an earthquake. This last city clearly was destroyed by violence and set on fire; its conquerors did not settle in the land they had won, but departed leaving the inhabitants to build again, but never on so grand a scale. So much archaeology reveals, and does something to confirm tradition’s story of the Trojan War.” (pg. 19.)

In his book, The Trojan War , historian Barry Strauss also explained why Agamemnon could use Helen’s elopement with Paris as an excuse for the war, in spite of other realities:

Petersen’s attempt at portraying the film in more human and historical terms than Homer’s mythological poem also appears worthwhile when we remember that the siege and sack of Troy really happened. The fact that archeologists have confirmed the historical record, that there really was such a city, that it really was destroyed by a Greek invasion force, that there really was an Agamemnon, that there is historical and linguistic evidence that many of the characters in the Iliad are not merely figments of Homer’s imagination, can restore for us some of the sense of reality that ancient hearers of the narrative poem would also have felt.

Sixth, it is amusing how stretched the comparisons, between Troy and the American war in Iraq, appear to us now. “The bootleg of this movie is liable to be a big seller in Fallujah,” remarked John Beifuss ( The Commercial Appeal ). A number of critics seemed to want Troy to be an allegory for the war in Iraq. Johanson ( Flick Filosopher ) wrote that Agamemnon “here is basically the Dubya of his day, Helen his WMDs (though of course she does actually exist), and Achilles his Haliburton contractor *cough* mercenary. *cough* …”

David Edelstein ( Slate Magazine ) is also thinking of President Bush when he writes that “Agamemnon, sends men off to kill and be killed to serve a grotesquely private, power-mad agenda—something to do with making a show of his might to scare the whole world into submission. Truly, a Troy for our time.” The film is “a topical treatise on what happens when soldiers blindly follow their leaders into war,” wrote Brunson ( Creative Loafing ), “… it can’t just be a coincidence that his Iliad adaptation is full of exchanges that dwell upon the reasons that nations elect to go to war, as well as the toll that such battles inflict upon everyone involved.

Certainly, there are numerous lines that could easily be applied to the White House warhawks, the mess they’ve created in Iraq, and the soldiers that are being sacrificed to further their own insidious agendas …” John R. McEwen (Film Quips) summarized the plot as a “selfish and petty political leader takes his country to war for spite, sending thousands to die so that he may gain power, put his name in the history books, and settle some silly score between him and another ruler. Jeez, that’s exactly what’s going on right now!”

No, it’s not a coincidence that there is dialogue in Troy on why nations go to war. This would be because the Trojan war was … a war. Never mind that production for Troy began before the war in Iraq began. The very conflict that begins the story, between Achilles and Agamemnon, between commander and soldier, is about why they are fighting the war. Achilles rebukes Agamemnon just as many a soldier throughout the entirety of military history has wished to rebuke his own commanders:

“‘Shameless – armored in shamelessness – always shrewd with greed! How could any Argive soldier obey your orders, freely and gladly do your sailing for you or fight your enemies, full force? Not I, no. It wasn’t Trojan spearmen who brought me here to fight. The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least, they never stole my cattle or my horses, never in Phthia where the rich soil breeds strong men did they lay waste my crops. How could they? Look at the endless miles that lie between us … shadowy mountain ranges, seas that surge and thunder. No, you colossal, shameless – we all followed you, to please you, to fight for you, to win your honor back from the Trojans – Menelaus and you, you dog-face!” (Fagles, Book I, 175-188.)

“Given the wide array of topics available, the Iliad’s selection of the narrowest sliver of the least consequential period of this all-encompassing war – a quarrel between a warrior and his commander during the protracted stalemate of the siege – is striking. Behind this choice there undoubtedly lay a much older epic song built on the familiar theme of wrath, revenge, and the return of the slighted warrior. As it is, the Iliad’s chosen structure necessarily rivets attention on Achilles. This epic rendering thus focuses less on the launching of fleets or the fall of cities than on the tragedy of the best warrior at Troy, who, as the Iliad makes relentlessly clear, will die in a war in which he finds no meaning.” (pgs. 13-14.)

If the film Troy could possibly be properly compared to the Iraq War that began at the time of its filming, it could be applied properly only in the sense that the themes of the Iliad can be universally applied to every war. Achilles, even at his most arrogant, has given us a lasting ringing challenge to any instigator of an unjust war:

“‘Yes!’ – blazing Achilles broke in quickly – / ‘What a worthless, burnt-out coward I’d be called / if I would submit to you and all your orders, / whatever you blurt out. Fling them at others, / don’t give me commands! / Never again, I trust, will Achilles yield to you.” (Fagles, Book I, 342-347.) “No, what lasting thanks in the long run / for warring with our enemies, on and on, no end? / One and the same lot for the man who hangs back / and the man who battles hard. The same honor waits / for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death.” (Fagles, Book IX, 383-387.)

Almost all the reviewers I read treated both Troy and the Iliad as if the story were designed to glorify war. But Homer was doing something much more complex than that and what I find admirable is that Petersen’s direction shows that he understands this. “Don’t waste your life following some fool’s orders,” warns Pitt’s Achilles to Patroclus. “You know I don’t want to fight,” Hector tells his wife, “I want to see my son grow tall.” “War is young men dying and old men talking,” Odysseus reminds Achilles. These are not just anti-war clichés and no nonpacifist need be afraid of them. Anyone who has served in the military knows the danger of serving under incompetent or vain commanders. Every veteran of a war should know the horror of what it would mean to fight and kill for an unjust cause. Troy is a film that immediately asks the viewer to think about this, and it introduces the character of Hector as an advocate for this view:

Paris: “Then I’ll die fighting.” Hector: “Oh! Now that sounds heroic to you doesn’t it? To die fighting. Tell me, little brother, have you ever killed a man?” Paris: “No.” Hector: “Ever seen a man die in combat?” Paris: “No.” Hector: “I’ve killed men and I’ve heard them dying and I’ve watched them dying and there’s nothing glorious about it – nothing poetic. You say you want to die for love but you know nothing about dying and you know nothing about love.”

George Wu ( CultureVulture ) is one critic who understood this. I appreciate that Wu could make the following distinction: “Petersen doesn’t cater to audience bloodlust the way Mel Gibson or James Cameron sometimes do in their films; he emphasizes the circle of violence at work in war. Each unprovoked attack brings about an even more vicious retaliation with a beloved character on each side often paying the price until the final result is mass atrocity. The cost of war is horrific, a lesson even Achilles learns.” I think that Petersen’s doing this follows the spirit of Homer’s story. This is, I would suggest, one of the reasons why so many thousands of us have found the Iliad to be universal and transcendent by nature. It is why this story can appeal to anyone in the world.

I hope all this does not come across as too pedantic for the reader. Furthermore, I also honestly hope that it is not a quixotic enterprise to affirm what ought to be simply a truism. I used to think this would have been a rather obvious point – namely, that there is something to be said for, when attempting to professionally review a certain type of film, to first acquire some knowledge of the actual historical or literary source upon which the film itself is based. That aforesaid knowledge could then allow the professional reviewer to distinguish between criticisms of the original source and criticisms of the film. What surprised me was the discovery, upon reading review after review of Troy , that so great a number of professionally published reviews manifested an inability to appreciate or understand the original source. In fact, it became clear that many of Troy’s critics had appeared to never have read the Iliad .

This being the case, in Part Two I will discuss how the film actually engaged with Homer’s work selectively, and how Wolfgang Petersen made a number of interesting decisions in telling a story that, however many years ago, used to be beloved and familiar to everyone.

Continue to Part Two.

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Troy (2004) – Wolfgang Petersen – Film Review Part 2

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The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers Essay (Critical Writing)

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The movie Troy creates the meaning that it is better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees. This is because in any society, individuals who perish while defending the honor of their people are eventually regarded as heroes.

This is well illustrated by Menelaus’ desire to seek vengeance against Paris who stole his wife, and in the process break himself from the yoke of ridicule by other people in the region. The same meaning of standing up for your honor is shown when Achilles visits his mother seeking her opinion on whether he should go to war or stay in Phtia and raise a family (Wolfgang, 2004). Her mother’s response is very objective as she gives him the pros and cons of both decisions.

She tells him that if he decides to opt out of war, he will get married and have many children. On the other hand, she says, if he goes to war in Troy, he will succeed in killing many of the enemy’s soldiers, but he will eventually be killed. The former option appears to be too enticing for Achilles to ignore and as soon as he finishes with his mother, he joins the team sailing to Troy.

The entire film revolves around individuals seeking to maintain dominance over other persons regarded as enemies. Achilles and Agamemnon find themselves at logger heads over Briseis, a woman they have captured from the Trojan Royal family and are keeping as a hostage. After the capture, Achilles had laid the first claim on the woman but Agamemnon disregards the call and stays with the lady. In such a situation, any man worth his pride would break all ties with the aggressor and this is actually what Achilles does (Wolfgang, 2004).

He and his Myrmidons stay away from Agamemnon’s team in the field. When Agamemnon gives Briseis to his men, Achilles fights tooth and nail to rescue her and they later enter a steamy love making session. It is at this point that Achilles finds himself in some sort of quagmire. He can stay and fight alongside the Greeks, which will then see him get the high regard as a hero that he so much seeks.

However, this decision will be a compromise that would require him to make amends with Agamemnon (who at the moment is not even remorsefully and continues carrying himself with pride). He also cannot leave the battlefront as this would wound his pride as a man to have gone to war and left without a win. As fate would have it, the Trojans launch a surprise attack against the Greeks and it is only when defeat is imminent for the latter that Achilles comes in and saves the day.

When Patroclus, Achilles’ cousin is killed as he (Achilles) sleeps, Achilles is infuriated and vows to not leave Troy without avenging the death. True to his word, Achilles enters Troy and in a one-on-one match against Hector (Patroclus’ killer) takes him down and humiliatingly drags the body to his camp.

The Trojan king makes a trip to the Greek camp requesting to take his son’s body for a decent burial (Wolfgang, 2004). This process of begging for the body massages the ego of the Greeks, making them envision success even though they are yet to leave the field.

As the story continues, the Greeks use crafty means to launch a steal attack against Troy and as they tear it to pieces, Achilles tries desperately to rescue Briseis. He eventually succeeds but is fatally wounded by several arrows. Even on his death, Achilles still wants to maintain his honor and quickly pulls out all the arrows on several parts of his body, leaving only one stuck at the heel.

This sustains the meaning of the film that a man is his honor and pride because in years to come, people are led to believe that Achilles death was caused by one shot on his heel. As the film draws to a close, the viewer cannot help but marvel at the late Achilles’ greatness supported by Odysseus’ speech regarding him (Achilles) as one of the giants of the time (Wolfgang, 2004).

The setting clearly justifies the character and conduct of Achilles and the other men in the film. The medieval time was probably the one period where personal honor was highly regarded and men would actually sacrifice their lives just to maintain social respect. The plot of the story also supports the element of self-pride, as it puts all the characters in situations where they have to make conscious decision to either fight (and probably die) and maintain their honor or retreat (and live) but lose their greatness in the eyes of generations to come.

The creators of the film definitely intended to make Troy more than just a regular action movie. They absconded all Hollywood demands and adopted a logical flow ensuring that all the issues presented in the film were well researched and put in proper context. The general direction taken by the film makers is an attempt to establish that pride cannot be clearly separated from confrontation.

The creators of the film constantly invite new characters and establish some smaller plots to help develop some sense of detachment. Some characters show up briefly to pass on a message of wisdom and then leave never to appear again. In general the film is very accurate especially since all the setting, the characters and the costumes are well picked out to make the story even more believable.

The actors in the film get into character very well and their lines are written in such a way that they are in tandem with the social class and the time in which the events were happening. For instance, the prince speaks with an air of authority going in line with his position in society. The gender relationships are also well defined depending on the setting hence making the delivery of the meaning even easier.

In order to influence feelings and emotions, the creators ensure that they do not spend a lot of time trying to explain how the various sub-plots are interconnected. This is because by picking on the emotive subject of pride, the writers of the film, Troy, were able to easily capture the attention of the audiences particularly from the American publics.

In general, the film tends to suggest that all human conflicts can be directly traced to the emotions surrounding the pride. In a way, the film is a revelation of the futility of the attempts of individuals trying to use peaceful negotiation to enact change. In order to support this motive, the director ensures that all characters who attempt to go outside this direction of events by sticking to their ideals are heavily punished-with most of them by death.

Wolfgang P. (Dir). (2004). Troy . USA: Warner Brothers.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 11). The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-troy/

"The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers." IvyPanda , 11 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-troy/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers'. 11 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-troy/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-troy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Movie Troy by Warner Brothers." October 11, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-film-troy/.

Cleverly Postmodern Homer: A Review of the Troy Movie

In Homer, Briseis is a bit part. She is mere booty, a prize occasioning Achilles and Agamemnon’s quarrel as they compete for wartime power and recognition ( Iliad : Loeb 1.118–187, 285–303; Fagles 1.138–221, 334–355). Homer uses this quarrel to explore the common humanity of both Achilles and Agamemnon. Eventually they abandon the mad fantasies that have shattered their lives ( Iliad : Loeb 9.17–28, 9.115–116, 16.96–100; Fagles 9.19–32, 9.137–139, 16.115–119). Homer ends with their reconciliation to each other and also with Achilles’ reconciliation to his own mortality ( Iliad : Loeb 23.884–895, 24.506–551; Fagles 23.979–92, 24.591–646). The theme of the narrative, as announced in its famous opening line, is thus Achilles’ resentment; and, as Eric Gans has argued, the poem exhibits the cultural expulsion of this ethically destructive and morally potent rage, thus attaining its narrative closure.

In the Troy movie, Briseis reprises her role as the narrative’s plot device. But she assumes a new centrality with her postmodern victim status. Disappointingly, Agamemnon is a stock Hollywood villain with no redeeming qualities, and he gets his (politically correct) postmodern comeuppance when the empowered female victim, Briseis, kills him with her knife. This spares Clytaemestra her famous murder ( Odyssey : Loeb 1995 edition, 11.387–466, 24.199–204; Fagles 1996 translation, 11.439–529, 24.219–225), and also, in our own age of global war, amidst wild accusations of empire, demographically satisfies the resentment of the masses on the periphery, but with the cheapest of pop culture’s narrative tricks: killing the purported “bad guy.” Achilles himself arrives too late to rescue Briseis, the feminist damsel in distress. But he is not too late to be shot down by Paris’ arrows, the first one penetrating into his notable heel. Briseis thus becomes (in the movie’s reinterpretation of the human desires driving the Trojan War) Achilles’ fatal weakness (whereas in Homer it is his outsized rage and resentment).

The formally clichéd tragic Hollywood ending is deployed, however, with self-conscious formal innovations involving the new femme fatale, Briseis. Played out in an A.D.D. time span of days, and not (as in Homer) as the culmination of a ten-year war, Achilles’ character arc is reconfigured to pivot on new heroic content: his erotic surrender under Briseis’ knife. His heroism is thus rehabilitated (according to postmodern necessity) by Briseis. She allows him to get in touch with his sensitive side, to make the fatal decision: to resolve to abandon the Trojan War, and to sail for Greece with her. Patroclus’ death functions to dispel this fantasy (which here romantically doubles Helen’s; but compare Homer’s version in the Iliad : Loeb 16.96–100; Fagles 16.115–119). Achilles’ reconceived character thus marks the movie as an intelligent postmodern reflection on the clichéd sacrificial requirements still requisite for politically correct aesthetics. Although belatedly (and anachronistically) heroic for his lover Briseis, Achilles must die in a violent Hollywood catharsis anyway. Yet Paris’ arrows bring salvific release for the classical hero, in a redemption palatable to the romantics of the new millennium.

In this postmodern retelling of the legend, it is Achilles’ desire to rescue Briseis from the sack of Troy, and to play the apparently obsolete male hero, that constitutes his fatal mythical flaw, rendering the warrior vulnerable. But his willing sacrifice of himself to these (politically correct) postmodern narrative exigencies is what tragically highlights the problem that Briseis’ newfound victimary centrality poses for classical male heroism. Both erotic and martial desire (Paris and Patroclus) claim victim status, putting the affirmative action on the victims’ behalf (Hector and Achilles, respectively) into plot-driving conflict. The sacrificial solution reveals a doubling of the romantic tragedy: if Paris and Helen are victims, then so are Achilles and Briseis. But this Hollywood ending is not just Achilles’ but also postmodernism’s Achilles’ heel: Apollo’s delayed sacrifice of the impious Achilles to his priestess Briseis, reconstitutes Achilles’ real (and heretofore undisclosed) glory—as nothing less than immortal chivalry.

[Line numbers for Homer’s Greek text are cited according to the Loeb Classical Library editions of Homer. For the English translation, I cite my favorite, by Robert Fagles, which follows its own line numbering system. I provide references to both, to facilitate maximum reading pleasure.]

Books mentioned in this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore .

Works Cited

Gans, Eric. “The Culture of Resentment,” Philosophy and Literature 8.1 (1984): 55–66.

Homer, The Iliad . Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin, 1990.

Homer, The Odyssey . Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin, 1996.

Homer, The Iliad . Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1999.

Homer, The Odyssey . Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 1995.

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Troy Review

14 May 2004

163 minutes

As the carrion birds pick at the carcasses strewn across this summer’s box office battlefield, the fiscal hawks at Warner Bros will be hovering nervously overhead. They equipped Wolfgang Petersen with a $175 million-plus war chest to launch this film’s flotilla of famous faces and bludgeoning battle sequences, yet beneath its muscle-bound, armoured shell, Troy is as hollow as its wooden horse.

Which does not necessarily mean that Troy will get slaughtered at the international box office, but Petersen would have launched a far more effective assault if he had deviated still further from his Homeric source: Troy is undone by The Iliad’s central conceit, which is too anachronistic. The director appears aware of this fact, weaving into the substantial downtime between set-pieces repeated assertions of the reason for the war — Helen and Paris’ love — answering questions the audience has not raised, and thereby indicating a near-fatal lack of confidence in his source material.

That two powerful nations would go to war simply because Paris nicked Menelaus’ girl found firm foundation in the age the tale was originally told, as a natural extension of the hero-cult.

This ancient concept ensured that the intended audience perceived the Homeric hard-men as heroes first, Trojans or Greeks second, their actions expressions of a now-extinct ideology. Today, fighting a war for love and honour seems mawkish and leaves the modern audience wondering which side to cheer.

Petersen does expand Brian Cox’s delightfully spiteful Agamemnon, investing him with an imperial yearning that could have provoked the war. But the repeated affirmation of Paris and Helen’s love igniting the campaign dilutes this war-mongering subtext.

Similarly, The Iliad’s other great theme — the pathos of Achilles’ fate — also fails to translate, with Petersen unsure how to handle this delicate premise. Again, it was the notion of hero-cult that underpinned Achilles’ actions and Homer was facilitated in his tale by having the gods purvey his hero’s destiny, adding a divine note to the emotional chord. Petersen, quite rightly, omits the Olympians, only introducing Thetis, Achilles’ immortal mater, to relay her son’s fate. But her visit is so fleeting that the import of her message dissipates as the crescendo looms, burdening Pitt with an impossible task.

Pitt makes full use of his many close-ups, his intensely physical form and heroic posturing encapsulating Achilles’ enigmatic bravura, and if he fails to convince as the climax approaches, it’s only because his motivation has been made forfeit. By contrast, Eric Bana’s Trojan champion Hector, unshackled by Achilles’ lofty premise, swashes his buckle as an embodiment of nobility that does command empathy.

Orlando Bloom's simpering turn is ideal for Paris and Bean and O’Toole provide much of the epic gravitas. The women, however, are less effective, and while Diane Kruger’s Helen could launch a dinghy or two, she is far too insipid to launch a thousand ships. Which is a shame, as the thousand ships are a CG marvel, an example of Troy’s awesome production values. The moment the two armies clash outside the walls rivals any battle in LOTR, and the individual combat, especially between Hector and Achilles, is mightily impressive. Through simple, if striking, fight choreography, Pitt’s Achilles at last becomes a fully-realised cinematic take on a major hero.

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Troy - Movie Review

Essay by review • January 29, 2011 • Essay • 1,600 Words (7 Pages) • 2,340 Views

Essay Preview: Troy - Movie Review

I reviewed the movie Troy (theater version), directed and produced by Wolfgang Peterson from January 19-22, 2008. The film is about the Trojan War, as described in HomerÐ²Ð‚™s Iliad and other Greek myths. The Trojan War was considered the most critical event in the early history of ancient Greece. According to ancient reports, the Trojan War was started by a conflict between three of the leading goddesses. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite held a contest to determine who was the most beautiful and in turn would receive the golden apple. Paris, son of King Priam of Troy was selected to judge the contest. Paris chose Aphrodite as the loveliest and in return she promised him the most beautiful wife. Paris then selected Helen of Sparta, wife of Menelaus as his prize and so started the most famous war in history between the Greeks and the Trojans.

In the movie, I think Achilles ultimately realized that fame and glory are not worth the price of war and really wanted to escape Troy with Briseis, cousin of Prince Hector of Troy. Achilles was a great Greek warrior filled with a destructive rage that made him the most feared man of his time. He became romantically involved with Briseis. I believe she somewhat influenced his change of heart, she had a way of quelling his rage. Her many conversations with Achilles regarding the tragic losses suffered during war helped to soften his heart and seemed to curb his rage. It was during this time that his anger began to waver at times during the Trojan War until his cousin, Patroclus was killed by Prince Hector. His uncontrollable rage momentarily returned as he planned to kill Prince Hector but I think in the back of his mind he knew his death was imminent. He knew this because prior to the battle, Thetis, Achilles mother advised him that he would become famous but would die in the Trojan War. I believe knowing this also influenced his state of mind.

Troy is a movie about the famous Trojan War which began as a dispute between two men. The Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the armies of the Achaeans after Paris; a Trojan Prince eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. An angry Menelaus tells his brother Agamemnon, King of Mycenae what happened and asks him to join him in waging war on Troy and taking back Helen. Agamemnon at first thought a fight for love was silly but soon realized that a victory at Troy would give him complete control over the Aegean which was more pleasing to him. Agamemnon called upon Achilles to help him. At first Achilles was reluctant, but after consulting with his mother, Thetis, he decided to join forces with Agamemnon and take his inexperienced cousin Patroclus. Thetis had convinced him that it would be better to die a famous Greek warrior in the Trojan War than to lead a simple life with a wife and a family. She said glory would be his doom. Agamemnon led the expedition of 1000 Greek ships to Troy to retrieve Helen and take control of Troy. After the initial attack on Troy, Agamemnon met with Prince Hector and Prince Paris and makes two demands. First they must return Helen to Menelaus and second Troy must submit to his command and fight whenever he needs them. Hector and Paris reject the demands and Paris challenges Menelaus to a fight for Helen. Menelaus accepts and the two fight. Paris is wounded and crawls back to his brother, Hector like a coward. Hector steps in for his brother and delivers a fatal blow to Menelaus. This unfair cowardly act infuriated Agamemnon and so the battle fiercely raged on. The next significant casualty was the death of Patroclus, cousin of Achilles. After Patroclus donned the armor of Achilles he led the soldiers into battle and was slain by Prince Hector. Prince Hector thought it was Achilles and was upset that it wasnÐ²Ð‚™t. This act enraged Achilles so he fought and killed Prince Hector and dragged his life-less body back to the Greek camp. King Priam, father to Prince Hector snuck into Achilles tent and requested that he return his sonÐ²Ð‚™s body and to allow the TrojanÐ²Ð‚™s twelve days for mourning. Achilles made the pact with King Priam and the fighting ceased for twelve days which infuriated King Agamemnon. On the morning of the twelfth day, a large wooden horse is found on the beach and the Greek ships were gone. The Trojan people believed the wooden horse was a token from the Greeks for winning the battle and they moved the horse into the city of Troy and celebrated the victory. During the night, while the city slept, the Greek soldiers hiding in the wooden horse took over the city and ultimately took control of Troy. Achilles then returned to Troy looking for Briseis and is killed by Prince Paris. The battles ends and the Greeks perform a funeral ritual by cremating Achilles.

I compared the movie to information found in our textbooks as well as an online resource at www.ancienthistory.about.com and found a few similarities. It seems there is no single reliable story that tells the entire events of the war, but Greek author, Homer is credited as writing the most important literary source in his epic poems known as Iliad and Odyssey. Our textbook parallels with the movie by indicating that the GreekÐ²Ð‚™s real goal of the Trojan War was to gain control of the wealth of Troy. In the movie, the initial goal was to retrieve

Troy (United States, 2004)

The line between epic spectacle and overblown bore is often as unclear as it is easily crossed. So it's no surprise that Wolfgang Petersen's Troy navigates that demarcation like a drunk driver on a twisty two-lane highway. There are times when Troy is stirring and engaging. However, at least as often, it is flat. There's really too much story to cram into a l65-minute period, yet, paradoxically, the movie seems longer than its bloated running length. And all of the visual majesty that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy cannot obscure the perfunctory and unsatisfying development of the major characters.

Troy is loosely (and I emphasize loosely ) based on Homer's epic poem "The Illiad," which many educated viewers will have read once (probably in a high school literature class). David Benioff's screenplay keeps most of the places and names, but takes a lot of what could charitably call "artistic license." One of the more interesting changes is to place the Olympians in the background. Troy is a story of men alone, not of men and gods. The filmmakers wanted this movie to follow in the footsteps of Braveheart and Gladiator rather than Clash of the Titans . For my money, it's the right decision.

Most viewers will recognize at least part of the story, which takes place around the year 1250 B.C. (Homer's poem is believed to have been composed about 400 years later). Helen of Sparta (Diane Kruger), the daughter of Zeus and a mortal, is said to be the most beautiful woman alive. When Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom) accompanies his older brother, Hector (Eric Bana), on a peace mission to Sparta, Paris and Helen fall for each other. The lovers flee to Troy and sanctuary while Helen's scorned husband, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), encourages his brother, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), to rouse all of Greece to go to war with Troy. Led by the hero Achilles (Brad Pitt), the Greeks attack the walled city.

With the possible exception of Hector, who is portrayed with depth and feeling by Eric Bana (star of last year's Hulk ), the characters in Troy are paper-thin. The biggest disappointment is Brad Pitt's Achilles, whose miniscule personality is overwhelmed by his bronzed skin and bulging muscles. Despite having bulked up for the part, Pitt defines the term "miscast." Achilles is as lifeless a central figure as one is likely to find. Orlando Bloom's Paris and Diane Kruger's Helen fall into the same pretty but personality-free zone. The sparks are left to the veterans - in particular, Peter O'Toole as Troy's King Priam, who employs his limited screen time to fashion a memorable character. In the end, one wishes the film had been focused on the king of Troy rather than the Greek hero.

Troy is chock-full of majestic battle scenes, none of which generate a whiff of energy or suspense. Some might argue that it's hard to make a battle exciting when the end is already known (those familiar with mythology know what happens when the Trojan Horse makes its appearance), but I disagree. I had read Tolkien's books long before viewing Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings , and was still riveted by the epic battle sequences. Likewise, my recognition of what happened at Gettysburg did not diminish my appreciation of Ronald Maxwell's historically accurate re-telling. What hurts Troy is that there's no imagination or energy to the battles. All we see is the clash between two largely faceless armies hacking at each other. The conflict, like many of the prominent characters, lacks a personality. Petersen's handling of the one-on-one fights (Paris vs. Menelaus, Hector vs. Ajax, Hector vs. Achilles) is more successful.

Troy was an expensive movie to make, and a lot of the money is on the screen. The special effects are well integrated into the live action shots (the scene of 1000 ships sailing to Troy is awe-inspiring), so we don't experience the kind of visual disconnect that often accompanies identifying the presence of computer generated images. James Horner's bombastic score is a disappointing accompaniment, however - easily his worst work in more than two decades. And cinematographer Roger Pratt's lensing of the battle sequences would be more impressive if he wasn't inadvertently competing with the recent memories of similarly vast encounters in The Two Towers and The Return of the King .

Despite its shortcomings, there are things to appreciate about Troy , not the least of which is that it's aimed at adults, not children - a rarity amidst summer fare. And, since I'm inordinately fond of historically-based epics (even though little is known about the real Troy), I was entertained more often than not. But it seems to me that if a viewer is going to invest nearly three hours, he or she deserves more than what Troy delivers. The best epics work because they provide both visual spectacle and emotional resonance, and the second part of that equation is where Troy falls short. Tertiary love stories (such as the one between Achilles and a slave girl) and noble speeches aren't enough. Petersen understands the importance of believable characters (as he proved in his landmark Das Boot ), but, excepting Hector and Priam, he fails to bring these mythological figures to life on the screen. And that, more than anything else, proves to be this film's undoing.

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Troy: Epic Retelling of the Ancient Conflict & Film Analysis essay

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Troy Movie Review: Epic Movie that Transports Ancient Myth to the Silver Screen

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Introduction

"Troy," directed by Wolfgang Petersen, is a cinematic masterpiece that brings to life the timeless epic of the Trojan War. Released in 2004, the film catapults viewers into the ancient world of heroes, gods, and the legendary city of Troy. While not without its departures from the original myth, "Troy" offers a mesmerizing visual spectacle and a thought-provoking exploration of themes such as honor, love, and the consequences of war. This essay delves into the cinematic interpretation of "Troy," examining its portrayal of characters, narrative choices, and its place within the broader context of historical epics in cinema.

A New Rendition of Ancient Mythology

"Troy" takes its inspiration from Homer's epic poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," which have captivated readers for centuries. The film endeavors to recreate the grandeur of this ancient saga while infusing it with modern cinematic sensibilities. While purists might find deviations from the original text, "Troy" successfully adapts the epic for a contemporary audience.

Portrayal of Legendary Characters

At the heart of "Troy" are its characters, each brought to life by a talented ensemble cast. Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles, the Greek hero, is a standout performance, capturing the character's swagger, combat prowess, and complex sense of honor. Orlando Bloom's Paris, the prince of Troy, brings a youthful naivety to the role, contrasting sharply with Eric Bana's Hector, a valiant and noble defender of Troy. The film also introduces audiences to the enigmatic Helen of Troy, played by Diane Kruger, whose beauty is at the center of the conflict.

These characters are not mere archetypes but multifaceted individuals with their own motivations and flaws. "Troy" explores their desires, loyalties, and the moral dilemmas they face amidst the chaos of war.

Narrative Choices and Adaptations

"Troy" condenses the sprawling narrative of the Trojan War into a coherent cinematic experience. To achieve this, the film omits some of the subplots and characters found in the original epic. For example, the gods, who play a significant role in Homer's work, are largely absent from the film, save for a subtle nod to divine intervention.

The film also takes creative liberties with certain events and characters, such as the portrayal of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus, which is given a more intimate and emotional dimension. These adaptations are made to suit the constraints of a feature-length film and to make the story more accessible to a modern audience.

Themes of Honor, Love, and War

One of the central themes in "Troy" is the concept of honor. The characters grapple with questions of personal honor, loyalty to their city, and the pursuit of glory. Achilles, in particular, embodies this theme as he seeks eternal glory on the battlefield but also grapples with the moral implications of his actions.

Love, another powerful theme, is at the heart of the conflict as Helen's beauty becomes the catalyst for war. The film explores the complex nature of love and the sacrifices made in its name.

War is depicted as brutal and destructive, with harrowing battle sequences that highlight the devastating consequences of conflict. "Troy" serves as a cautionary tale about the horrors of war and the toll it exacts on both the victors and the vanquished.

"Troy" is a cinematic epic that successfully translates the timeless tale of the Trojan War to the silver screen. Through its portrayal of legendary characters, narrative choices, and exploration of themes such as honor, love, and war, the film engages viewers in a thought-provoking and visually stunning journey to the ancient world. While it may not adhere to every detail of the original myth, "Troy" captures the essence of Homer's epic and stands as a testament to the enduring power of ancient storytelling in the medium of film.

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Troy Film Review

By: Jon • Essay • 262 Words • December 5, 2009 • 1,387 Views

Essay title: Troy Film Review

The movie Troy (2004) was based on the stories told within the Iliad written 3200 years ago. The story is a tale of one mans greed versus the land loving, pride fighting Troy army. Troy seemed to be outnumbered, but their faith in the gods, and the love of their own country helped them stand up strong against the enormous Greek army. With the kings' son, Hector a great war hero and powerful leader, the Troy army had seemed unbeatable. They were a very advanced and healthy city, protected by giant walls that stretched all around the city, making it nearly impossible for an army of this period to break it down. They were also protected by the Aegean Sea, since there city was located about a mile from the shores. Greece's best chance of attack was by crossing this sea. The Greek's were a loose unity of kingdoms that were all controlled by Agamemnon,

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Troy - Movie Review

Essay by toodjent • May 29, 2012 • Essay • 401 Words (2 Pages) • 2,832 Views

Essay Preview: Troy - Movie Review

Movie Troy is situated on the Northwest part of Asia Minor Turkey. The movie based on the ancient Greek epic The Iliad and depicts the Trojan War as it was told by Homer. A war started on the behalf of beautiful Helen that was abducted from her husband by Paris. It was a war for the restoration of a Greek king's honor. The United Greek armies of various cities launched a military expedition for that reason against the Trojan. The main battle of troy is thought to have taken place in the 12th or 11th century BC.

All we can know for certain is that there was an ancient city at the Bosphorus, which was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. So there has to be a core of truth in the story, but as history is always written by the winners, we do not know how much of it is true.

The characters are most probably fictional, probably every Greek town and city wanted to have a hero who fought in that famous war, and Homer took it from there.

The thing about Helen might well have been true, because even in historic times the land of the city state of Sparta belonged to the women, and the bronze age king probably had his legitimacy by marriage to the queen, in whose lineage the inheritance was given on, so Menalaos would have good reason to want his wife back, and to reconcile himself to her afterwards. Troy, may be inaccurate, for one, the war didn't just happen in days, it happened in years and the Pitt's character's "cousin" really wasn't his cousin in real life, he was either a really close friend or may have even been Achilles' lover as was common in that culture for an older man to take his young apprentice as more than a mentor.

I found this film to be epic indeed, full of battles, large landscapes and plenty of CG cities and armies to boggle the mind. One of the more interesting things I got from this movie was how well it showed how one's own actions can affect the lives of others, and how selfishness, arrogance, etc can affect people as well. Each character was faced with choices in life that could potentially alter the lives of many others, and the audience gets to watch as the consequences of those actions play out, showing the cost of their choices.

A Quiet Place: Day One Review

Pretty much the best case scenario for a prequel..

A Quiet Place: Day One opens in theaters Friday, June 28.

It’s impressive just how great A Quiet Place: Day One is. Not that the first two Quiet Place movies weren’t good – they’re both strong films in their own right. But this spinoff/prequel to those earlier films introduces new characters in a new setting that successfully elevates both the tension and the emotional impact of John Krasinski’s nearly dialogue-free horror films. The result is the series’ best movie to date.

As the title implies, Day One brings us back to the very beginning, to the day sightless alien creatures with extremely sharp hearing first crash down to Earth. Yes, we saw some of this invasion play out in A Quiet Place Part II’s harrowing prologue, but the big difference here is a change of scenery: Where that sequence was set in a small town in Upstate New York, Day One takes place right in the middle of Manhattan. That change gives the action a different feel, which only expands as the movie charts the first steps toward the post-apocalyptic world established in the first two films.

A Quiet Place: Day One Gallery

Our main character this time out is Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), who’s in town on a day trip during a time of personal crisis. As fate would have it, she won’t be catching a bus home that afternoon, due to the nightmarish creatures who show up and mercilessly wipe out any humans they hear in their vicinity. Nyong'o is a proven talent – she has an Oscar for a reason. And yet, perhaps because she’s only made a handful of movies since her breakout performance in 12 Years a Slave , every new role she plays feels like a reminder of what a terrific actor she is and how effortlessly she holds the screen. The opening scenes of A Quiet Place: Day One establish what Samira’s life is like and the impulsive hostility she’s sometimes capable of – an efficient explanation of what causes her behavior. But it’s Nyong'o’s performance that does the heavy lifting of quickly connecting us to her, so that we’re invested even before the world starts ending.

As the survivors of the aliens’ initial attack process what happened and how quiet they need to be to avoid detection, Samira finds a new focus. She knows exactly where in the city she wants to travel. Her reasoning becomes clear as time goes on, and by that point, writer-director Michael Sarnoski (taking over for Krasinski, who returns as executive producer and receives a “story by” credit) has fully immersed us in this story, grounding an outrageous premise in a relatable emotional core.

What's the best horror movie of 2024 so far?

Sarnoski pulled off a similar trick in his first feature, 2021’s Pig , turning the story of Nicolas Cage tracking down his stolen pet foraging pig into something so empathetic and soulful. The other Quiet Place movies have powerful, compassionate moments of their own, but Day One manages to dig deeper. In a film that only sparingly uses dialogue, Sarnoski and his talented cast manage to convey a lot through brief yet meaningful glances and small observations. The prequel underlines the awful, nearly impossible plight of its protagonists. Could you truly stay silent while moving fast? Or if you were in terrible pain? Or if you were just plain terrified? There are several wrenching moments throughout that demonstrate just what an ordeal this would be, and why so many wouldn’t survive it.

This is especially true once Samira meets British law student Eric (Joseph Quinn). Barely holding it together, Eric latches on to Samira. He sheepishly follows her, whether she likes it or not, and their dynamic adds more heart to Day One. We see how Eric and Samira rapidly forge a real connection, even though they can’t really speak to one another. Quinn is wonderful at displaying Eric’s sweetness and vulnerability through his actions, rather than any big monologue, and he proves to be the perfect scene partner for Nyong'o.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the emotional components of A Quiet Place: Day One, so I should also note that this movie is truly scary and often intense as hell. (It gets an extra jolt in IMAX, where the sound design genuinely made me feel like I was in the middle of a city under siege.) There are terrific scenes throughout that ratchet up the tension, such as when our heroes must travel through a flooded subway tunnel. When the aliens attack, it’s brutal and memorable – this is one of the harder-edged PG-13 films in recent memory. Sarnoski gets a lot of visual mileage out of the creatures swarming the streets of New York and scurrying across skyscrapers, which is especially impressive considering how many other monster movies have used the city as their backdrop. There’s a genuine dread that sells this as a believable look at how people would react to a situation so beyond comprehension and so out of their control.

Day One is mainly a two-hander between Nyong'o and Quinn, though Alex Wolff (who worked with Sarnoski on Pig) does good work in a smaller role. Djimon Hounsou also pops up to reprise his role as Henri from A Quiet Place Part II – the only real attempt to establish more connective tissue to the larger Quiet Place franchise. It’s fan service, but to the film’s credit, there isn’t any eye-rolling foreshadowing of what Henri’s future holds. (You can absolutely enjoy Day One without any prior knowledge of A Quiet Place.)

There’s one other significant character: Frodo, Samira’s therapy cat. As a cat lover, I was nervous for Frodo from the get-go – after all, this is a film series that kicks off with the death of a young boy. I won’t say whether Frodo makes it out alive or not, but I will say that the two cats playing him, Nico and Schnitzel, give excellent performances. Granted, the extent to which Frodo never meows or cries out – no matter what is occurring around him – requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. Look, I have cats, and they truly won’t shut up when they’re hungry. But Frodo is just built different, okay?

A Quiet Place: Day One shows that the horror franchise can thrive without its core characters and can go even further in terms of how impactful its stories can be. Day One combines expertly done moments of terror and tension combined with a story about two people it’s easy to care for, as we watch them forge a relatable human connection while trying to evade freaky alien monsters with really strong hearing. It’s both the best A Quiet Place movie to date and one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2024.

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‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Review: Silent Beginnings

The chills are more effective than the thrills in this prequel to the “A Quiet Place” franchise.

Share full article

A man, a woman and a cat stand at the base of the escalators in a dark subway station.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

The cat. It’s all about the cat.

No matter what else happens in “A Quiet Place: Day One,” no matter how sensational Lupita Nyong’o is — and she is — her character’s feline buddy is going to take over the story and, likely, the discourse around it.

Mind you, there also was a cat, Jones, in “Alien,” a movie that’s a major influence on the “Quiet Place” universe — one in which aliens land on Earth and massacre everybody for no reason besides sheer killing instinct. John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” (2018) and “A Quiet Place Part II” (2021) laid down the basic parameters, mainly that the creatures’ extremely developed hearing makes up for their blindness, and they hate bodies of water.

But Jones was peripheral to “Alien,” the masterpiece that kicked off a franchise revolving around body invasion. Our fearless new hero is very much embedded in the theme running through all three “Quiet Place” movies: the importance of family, whether biological or chosen.

In Michael Sarnoski’s prequel, Frodo (played by both Nico and Schnitzel) is the support cat of Samira (Nyong’o), a New York City poet living in crippling cancer-induced pain in a hospice. She takes Frodo everywhere, including an outing to a puppet show, where the audience members include a man (Djimon Hounsou) whom viewers of the second movie will instantly recognize. When the invasion begins, he is quick to impart the importance of making as little noise as possible to avoid alerting the attackers.

Somehow borne on meteorites (don’t ask), the aliens immediately get down to their gruesome business. The movie allows us a few good looks at the toothy monsters, who made me think of hellish Giacometti sculptures. But otherwise Sarnoski (who made the endearing Nicolas Cage drama “Pig” ) does not add all that much crucial new information to their basic character sheet — “Day One” is refreshingly free of origin story explaining.

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‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Review: Alien Invasion Prequel Arrives Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Instead of providing answers or much in the way of suspense, director Michael Sarnoski’s contribution stars Lupita Nyong'o as a terminally ill cat owner tiptoeing through a mostly off-screen apocalypse.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Reviewed at AMC The Grove, Los Angeles, June 26, 2024. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time:

Production: A Paramount Pictures release and presentation, in association with Michael Bay, of a Platinum Dunes, Sunday Night production. Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, John Krasinski. Executive producers: Allyson Seeger, Vicki Dee Rock.
Crew: Director: Michael Sarnoski. Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski; story: John Krasinski, Michael Sarnoski, based on characters created by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck. Camera: Pat Scola. Editors: Andrew Mondshein, Gregory Plotkin. Music: Alexis Grapsas.
With: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou.

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Troy movie review & film summary (2004)
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'A Quiet Place: Day One' Review: Alien Invasion Prequel Arrives Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing Reviewed at AMC The Grove, Los Angeles, June 26, 2024. MPA Rating: PG-13.

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Reviewed at AMC The Grove, Los Angeles, June 26, 2024. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time:

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