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After the woeful
Van Helsing
it’s good to finally see the first decent ‘blockbuster’ of 2004, a movie that uses its whopping
budget to tell an actual story rather than just to string together a series of empty, synthetic and lacklustre set-pieces.
It is certainly a handsomely mounted production and it definitely looks like the budget went onto the screen, rather into
the pocket of Brad Pitt. The CGI in this movie is impressive and is used subtly in order to service the telling of the story
rather than to serve as an end in itself. Seeing here the Spartan fleet closing in on the beach of Troy, it beggars belief
that VH’s $150 million dollar budget couldn’t even render up one convincing boat put to sail.
Like most ‘epic’ movies, the acting ranges from outstanding all the way down through to under-whelming. The standout
performance of the movie goes to Peter O’Toole, in the one scene he shares with Pitt his performance is almost heartbreaking
to watch. The other two performances of note are Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus and Eric Bana as the heroic, noble Hector.
Brian Cox, is also very good as Agamemnon, he makes the character thoroughly repugnant, a man driven purely by his greed
for more power. Sadly though, this is the kind of villainous role that Cox can play in his sleep, and usually does, it would
be nice to see him stretch himself once in a while. Brad Pitt is rather good as Achilles, and certainly has the
physicality to make you believe that he is the World’s greatest warrior. His acting in the quieter, more personal scenes is
good but nothing that you haven’t seen from him before as he relies on his stock bag of tics and expressions. Sean Bean is
pretty solid as Odysseus and makes you wonder why he isn’t a bigger star. And then there is Orlando Bloom as Paris, I’m
still unsure as to whether I think this guy is a good actor or not. He seems to have carried his Legolas performance over
to this film, slight effeminate and good with a ‘bow and arrow.’ Both the character of Paris and the actor are not served
well by the story, as all it really asks of Paris is just to, essentially, screw everything up that he does.
You may wonder why there are no actresses covered in the above paragraph, this is simply because they are, by and large,
given little to do, but what they are given is done well. They are for the most part there simply to tell their men not to
do ‘this and that,’ but once it’s explained to them that it’s their duty, grudgingly support them. This hurts the movie
particularly with relation to Helen (Diane Kruger) the supposedly amazing woman that set these two lands to war, Diane Kruger sure is
beautiful but I’m not sure I’d want to go to war over her, which is probably why the men, for the most part, really don’t.
The only female character who comes across as even faintly pro-active is the character of Briseis, played by Rose Byrne.
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