A View From Mars:
Troy (B-)
Nothing screams summer like potato salad and tent-pole summer flicks. We are at that time of the year when Hollywood throws us their biggest and presumably best blockbusters in hopes of raking in tons of money. Van Helsing started it off and here we continue with Troy, which is noted as being inspired by Homer's Iliad. It begins at the onset of the Trojan War, where Prince Hector (Erica Bana) and Prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) are sent from Troy to Sparta on a peace mission. During this mission, young Paris falls for Helen (Diane Kruger) and decides right then and there that he should have her, so he does. Well this doesn't sit too well with Helen's husband and soon this act is the catalyst for the Greeks to invade Troy. Of course this movie is headlined by Brad Pitt who plays the renegade with the "devil-may-care" attitude, Achilles. He comes along for the ride at the bidding of Odyssius (Sean Bean) but in defiance of Greece's overbearing and greedy ruler to all, Agememnon (Brian Cox). After all, Achilles is the "greatest warrior" ever, so what would the "greatest war ever fought," be without him. Etc., etc....battles...yada, yada, yada...Trojan horse...the end. This movie is popcorn fun entertainment and anytime a movie of this epic genre comes along it risks comparison to Gladiator and Braveheart, two Best Picture winners, and two personal favorites that are clearly in a higher plateau than this movie. What didn't work for me was Pitt's portrayal of Achilles. I like Pitt, but he played Achilles as too arrogant and self absorbed to be taken serious. He was trying to achieve Russel Crowe's "loved by all because of his defiance" Maximus performance in Gladiator but he never came close. I had more compassion for the character of Hector and 2 hours into this (2 hour and 40 minute run time) I didn't care what happened to Achilles. Despite this, the movie held up enough for me to grade it in the "B" range, barely. Just because a movie comes out during Hollywood's summer blockbuster slot, don't get suckered into thinking that everything will be gold.
1 Comments:
I don't agree with this assessment of Achilles. Achilles WAS self-absorbed and arrogant, so if Brad Pitt played him that way, it was great. I thought they did a great job putting this movie together and condensing this 10-year war into a matter of days, although it was a little hard to believe that the Greeks could construct housing and the Trojan horse in the short span of time depicted.
One thing that bothered me about this movie was the soundtrack. The music they chose really did not work well for me. In fact, it was distracting at times, especially during the final battle as Troy is falling to the Greeks. The soundtrack has some woman wailing in the backgroudn and it got really annoying.
Movie Man Mike
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