Troy
When making a historical epic in Hollywood, filmmakers must be handed a special booklet outlining the rules they must take into consideration when planning their revisionist take on some of the most well-known legends of all time.
As has to be the case with all epics, the film’s production design is lavishly outstanding, costume design equally eye-catching, if not overly bothered with historical accuracy. These categories are Oscar nomination worthy, guaranteed, even if the film is complete shite. Music in epic films these days has to encompass annoying Enya type moanings – soaring vocal gymnastics with either no actual words, or romantically very few in another language (including made up ones). As well as such emotionally overwrought music there has to be a shithouse end song actually sung in English by a current popstress/diva called something like “The Passion of Troy” or “1000 Ships of Courage”, or some such bullshit.
Accents are tricky, but the usual rule is to either have everyone sound British (it makes it sound more ‘old’) or split the warring factions and have one British and one American, just to show they’re different. Troy opts to have the Greeks and Trojans all sound British while Achilles is some strange hybrid. His American-ish accent at least keeps him apart from the rest, and draws attention to this curiosity.
So that’s the basics done, the epic-film window-dressing taken care of. As for the story in this case – well what can you say? The legend of the Trojan War is pretty darn hard to mess up. Wolfgang has rightly dropped the Greek-Gods-as-characters from Homer’s poem and made a few other minor altercations that may disappoint those who hold the poem as the true reference for all things Troy, but mostly they are to streamline events into a very simplistic narrative. Too simplistic, perhaps. Troy is just a battle after battle interspersed with many clumsy diatribes on ‘honour’, ‘love’, ‘family’ and ‘immortality’ – the usual suspects really.
The archetypal characters of the story remain as passionate and fiercely emotive as they’ve ever been, probably more so, as they seem to constantly reiterate the same points about themselves ad nausea. Hector is established again and again as a man who will do anything to protect his home and his people, while 25 minutes in Achilles had been involved in at least 7 conversations about how he is determined to achieve immortality through his life’s actions. “Your Name Will Be Remembered Forever!” is what seals him on joining the fracas between the Trojans and the Greeks. What was wrong with this guy? What sort of complex did he have? Who wakes up every morning determined to be written about in history books? Still, he is a great character, and Pitt certainly looks the part of a man more God than mere mortal, the bastard.
Thankfully the Paris/Helen relationship (or Heris as today’s tabloids would call it) is skimmed over in less than a minute, and while his character might be responsible for the ensuing chaos, Orlando Bloom hardly registers after the start of the film (but it is in the handbook that every modern epic has to have him in it – I believe they are digitally inserting him into Gladiator as Maximus’s wife as we speak). Wolfgang must have seen Attack of The Clones and smartly realised no one really needed to see another bunch of clueless kids whining on and on about true love. Instead the main focus quickly becomes the Hector/Achilles rivalry, which builds nicely to their one-on-one battle. Eric Bana gives his best performance in an American film thus far as Hector, and while he certainly isn’t a beacon of brilliance, he does bring a more grounded masculinity to Hector to contrast to the flashy narcissism of Hollywood Achilles. It really wasn’t until this interpretation that I realised the tale is much less about love and passion than it is about ego and stubbornness, Achilles being the shining example of both.
There were times when this film almost had me, when I was caught up in a particular fight and enjoying watching Achilles kick some ass, but really the film has an underlying hollowness to it that just can’t be ignored. It ticks all the boxes for an epic, and it’s about one of the greatest tales ever told, but the filmmakers were content in just delivering the status quo, and in doing so it ends up far from impressive. The story has been simplified to the point of becoming lacklustre in its retelling. There was something tremendously fresh about Gladiator that epics since have struggled to recreate, but one thing was clear – that it was Maximus’ journey from general to slave to God-like gladiator that was epic, not just the costumes or the weapons or the castles. Here Troy has been reduced to fight after fight and the story doesn’t really travel anywhere – we just wait around until characters resolve their personal conflicts through battle. Still, the basic elements remain, and there are lots of pretty faces, bodies, and all the usual bloody carnage to enjoy for a superficial viewing. It’s just not epic enough for me.