Troy

The movie Troy is much like its source story: it involved larger-than-life megastars, an ambitious storyteller, and a bit of controversy over who won (a Pyrrhic victory, or a defeat all around? Or even setting the stage for an even greater empire to arise, in the Aeneid). It received lukewarm critical reviews in the US and anecdotally is regarded as a failure at the box office (it didn't earn back production costs in domestic box office). However, it did very well internationally, and the only reason its $120 million domestic take didn't pay for the movie by itself was that it was tremendously expensive, $180 million.

The production money was put to good use. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an aggregate score of 55% approval, but I suspect many reviewers were looking for an epic truer to the classical Iliad. Witness Roger Ebert's review (well-written as usual, but in this case, wrong):

"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.

Many of the issues Ebert claims are the movie's failings are in fact the movie's strengths. I watched it 3.5 years after the hype surrounding it, and am happy to say I think it's a good movie. As Ebert suggests, it's not a movie that you could substitute for reading Homer if you had to write a book report due tomorrow (besides, at 3 hours long, it's not a movie you should watch under deadline). It discards many characters willy-nilly, simplifies motivations, and stays stubbornly natural.

This emphasis on cinematic veracity rather than literary fidelity pays off. The first 5/6 of the film moved quickly, unlike Jackson's Lord of the Ring; although it would have been nice to see some cultural favorites like Cassandra and her father, or more of Odysseus's plotting, this was not their movie. The director, Wolfgang Petersen, turns the siege of Troy into a dyadic relationship between Hector, the son of Troy, and Achilles, the invincible warrior.

This is a relationship that the characters themselves do not see; the only real encounters between the two are on the battlefield (the director, perhaps overcompensating, makes Achilles pointedly heterosexual and attracted to Hector's (female) cousin). But we see how the compact Trojan group deals with its champion, integrated in the royal council and listened to with respect, while comparing it to Achilles's pseudo-exile within the Greeks. Menelaus and Agamemnon dictate orders to their allied city-states, without consultation.

The modern nuance that Ebert decries lends an interesting view of Achilles. He's ironic and narcissistic, hypocritical and thoughtful, nihilistic and verve-filled. The sheer enthusiasm with which Pitt portrays Achilles's hypocrisy is startlingly fun -- from one minute a hardened warrior accustomed to death and seeking only glory, to the next an angered cousin shouting out in fury at the universe, "Why him!?" The essential humanity of this conflict is only highlighted.

Knowing (as I did) what would come, I found the final 1/6 of the movie unnecessarily slow. The director wanted us, presumably, to feel the dread and anticipation as he finally comes to pass, but it didn't work. I was left bored and a bit annoyed at how the characters jumped into their doom.