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Review: Troy (**)



 
 
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Old May 11th 04, 11:02 PM
Steve Rhodes
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Default Review: Troy (**)

TROY
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): **


The beautiful people go to war in TROY. This Cecil B. DeMille-like epic
motion picture, by AIR FORCE ONE's Wolfgang Petersen, stars Hollywood stars
looking their most lovely. In the lead role of Achilles, Brad Pitt is buff,
blonde and beautiful. With his dreamy, deep blue eyes and fantastic body,
Pitt turns the Trojan War into something like the model contest in ZOOLANDER
when Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson compete on the runway. Pitted against
Brad's bod are THE LORD OF THE RINGS's Orlando Bloom as Paris and THE HULK's
Eric Bana as Paris's brother Hector. They are both princes of Troy, where
Peter O'Toole is the king.



Less well known and not quite as pretty as the men in the story, the
actresses spend most of the movie with their mouths agape watching their men
fight to the death. As "the face that launched a thousand ships," Diane
Kruger plays Helen of Sparta. (The war is fought over a wandering wife
after Queen Helen leaves Sparta to run off with Paris and live in Troy,
hence her more well-known title of Helen of Troy. If you saw her husband,
you might be tempted too.) Saffron Burrows plays Andromache, Hector's loyal
wife. Finally, the ever-lovely Julie Christie plays Thetis, Achilles's
mother.



Unless you've recently read "The Iliad," you'll be thinking "this is all
Greek to me" for most of the first hour. But eventually you'll realize that
you can forget all of the various groups and allegiances that the story
tries to clue you in on. The long battle boils down to those fighting from
behind Troy's walls and those fighting to get in. The movie, which could
easily and more powerfully have been told in considerably less than two
hours, goes on for almost three, making for one long and tiresome epic. As
the various warriors slice and dice each other -- Achilles, the "greatest
fighter in the world," appears to have learned some of his tricks by
watching THE MATRIX -- we find that we just don't care. The actors never
get beyond their Hollywood personas, so that, when they perish, we are
completely unmoved. They'll be back in another blockbuster before we know
it.



After his impressive 25TH HOUR debut, screenwriter David Benioff manages to
dumb down a classic. In one of the many laughable lines, one of Achilles's
men asks his master why he let Hector go without killing him. "It's too
early in the day for killing princes," Achilles replies.



Only the music never disappoints. By Academy Award winner James Horner
(TITANIC), the score is breathtaking without ever being overwhelming. The
movie, one of the most expensive ever made, is pretty underwhelming, but it
does work marvelously as a beauty pageant.



TROY runs considerably too long at 2:45. It is rated R for "graphic
violence and some sexuality/nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
I've seen many more graphic films given a PG-13 rating so the MPAA surprised
me again.



The film opens in most of the known world on Friday, May 14, 2004. In the
Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters
and the Camera Cinemas. (A few countries outside of the U.S. will be
getting the film a day or two earlier.)



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