Rate Troy

[Krug]

Average score of 7.28 after 60 votes..

 

[johnsemlak]

Just saw it.

Troy began with some really wooden acting IMO, though
it did get better towards the end. Really cood have
used better acting and a better screenplay in some
scenes though.

I did like the battle scene between Hector and Achilles, it had the feel of an epic deul. Hector's wife's sadness watching her husband was well done, as was Priam's later request to Achilles to take back his son's body. I hated how the battle was initiated though, with Achilles simply approaching the walls and screaming 'HECTOR!'. It may have been like that in the Iliad (I forget) but it doesn't work well on the screen. The film should have brought out Achilles' rage more as well. The Rage of Achilles is, after all, the center of the story.

It's good to see LotR and realize it is possible to
make a great movie from a great epic story. I think
Peter Jackson could have done better with this
material.

I rated it a 5.

EDIT, oh, forgot, I was disappointed to see theat Julian Glover made such a brief appearance in the film.

 

[shilsen]

I hated how the battle was initiated though, with Achilles simply approaching the walls and screaming 'HECTOR!'. It may have been like that in the Iliad (I forget) but it doesn't work well on the screen. The film should have brought out Achilles' rage more as well. The Rage of Achilles is, after all, the center of the story.

I agree. In the Iliad, Achilles massacres the Trojan troops and sends them fleeing towards the city. He gets held up for a bit, with the river Scamander/Xanthus (who is a god in the Greek scheme of things) trying to drown him and Apollo taking the shape of Hector and drawing him away. This gives the fleeing Trojans time to get to the city, but Hector stays beyond the gates to fight him. Some variation thereof could easily have been pulled off in the movie.

 

[Kai Lord]

Just saw it yesterday, I give it an 8.

Very entertaining. Its main weakness was in having Achilles be the focus of the story.

That being said, I was extremely impressed with Brad's take on the character. Pretty boy Brad Pitt really sold the illusion of being a guy who can rouse an army by charging ahead of them on the battle field. Like several others on this thread, I really like how he carried himself and moved in battle.

Eric Bana's Hector was indeed the most interesting character and compelling character, and I really think some of the scenes with Brad and his love interest/prisoner should have been cut in favor of some pre-Sparta establishing scenes with Hector.

Both men were the fiercest warriors of their people, but Hector was Lawful while Achilles was Chaotic. One fought for genuine love of his country, one for glory, and the younger, prettier sibling/cousin that they would die for was a nice tie that bound them together outside of their battlefield prowess.

Achilles was careless in watching over his young cousin, and his cousin died because of it, killed by Hector. In contrast, Hector was very dilligent in watching over his young brother, keeping him alive, who then became the downfall of Achilles. I really like that aspect of the story and how it was captured on screen. It just would have been nice to have seen equal buildup of Hector's character to get even more payoff when it was all resolved.

Helen was sufficiently beautiful, even if it would have been nice if they had found a distractingly stunning actress like Kate Beckinsale, but right now all the most beautiful women in Hollywood (Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Katie Holmes) seem to be brunettes. Diane Kruger was definitely a better choice than any known actress I can think of.

The battles were great, and the D&D geek inside me couldn't help but smile with glee at just how reminiscent Achilles, Hector, Ajax, et al seemed to be of badass Player Characters strutting their stuff in the midst of NPC class mooks. LOTR had that, but these guys had even more of the super-heroism that D&D characters tend to gravitate toward.

A mixed bag, definitely no ROTK, but significantly more impressive than the lackluster Gladiator. Looking forward to owning the DVD.

 

[Kai Lord]

And we've been seeing big lines of non-existent people run into each other for a while, now. Since The Mummy Returns, at least.

No, in The Mummy Returns only one side was CGI. The Phantom Menace had an all digital battle, but it didn't feature a scene with both sides running toward each other, a la Braveheart. The Two Towers sort of had it, when the Uruk-hai breached the wall and Aragorn led the elves in a charge against them. Really the only significant example before Troy was in the recent ROTK, during the battle of Pellenor Fields.

But even so, is this technique somehow off limits now? That's how medieval armies fought, but filmmakers can't show it but once or twice? How else are movies going to depict epic battles?

 

[Kai Lord]

I hated Paris, though. I just plain found it impossible to like the prissy little fop. If he were a character in Braveheart, he would have been thrown out the castle window by Longshanks.

And if Longshanks were a character in Troy, he'd be bowing before Agamemnon like a prissy little fop. Your point?

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

I saw it Sunday with my girlfriend who has not read the Iliad and was surprised at some things. I like the battle scenes and the armor, especially the shields of the Trojan horsemen. At first I didn't like that half shield until I saw them riding. Being a classicist I was really looking forward to this film and thought it was a good movie but not a good adaptation. Way too many changes for me, I think I would have given it a higher score if I already didn't know the story.

The best character in the movie was Hector- Eric Bana did a superb job, also Hector was my favorite character in the Iliad. Bloom pulled off the role of Paris well IMO- a pretty boy who really did not know war nor how to fight in one.

I rated it a 7, a good film that could have been better. Worth seeing in the theater but not twice but will buy the DVD when it comes out (because I've too much of geek not to want that in my DVD library to watch it whenever I want too ).

 

[johnsemlak]

I agree Eric Bana was good. I wasn't impressed at first, but he seemed to grow on the role, and I think the movie suffered from screenplay problems more than acting early on.

That said, I think Russell Crowe could have been masterful as the stoic Hector.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Helen was sufficiently beautiful, even if it would have been nice if they had found a distractingly stunning actress like Kate Beckinsale, but right now all the most beautiful women in Hollywood (Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Katie Holmes) seem to be brunettes. Diane Kruger was definitely a better choice than any known actress I can think of.

This is the Helen problem in a nutshell. You need someone very genera-hot, in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. The three actresses you listed are substantially less generic looking than Kruger. Beckinsdale is probably the closest to generic, but the other two rely upon a fairly narrow attractiveness niche. As a result, a small percentage of the population who especially digs that niche will find them more attractive than Kruger, but most will find them less. Personally, I think Katie Holmes is gorgeous, Beckinsdale is hot, and Biel is ugly as sin. Someone else mentioned Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie is very, very hot to a subset of the population. And very, very unattractive to another subset. I can think of few less attractive women, personally. Her face makes me physically ill.

So, you're casting "the most beautiful woman in the world." Do you choose someone who is stunning to maybe a third of the population, bland to a third, and very unattractive to a third? Or do you choose someone who maybe 80% will say is very attractive, though they stop short of being flattened by her?

 

[Arnwyn]

I thought is was good, but not great - I rated it a shakey 7.

I enjoyed it no more and no less than Van Helsing (though I knew exactly what to expect from Van Helsing, so that helped a lot).