Troy
May 24, 2004Grade: B
Mostly I went to this flick as an excuse to go to the Tinseltown theater, where they have a little arcade with my favorite game–Virtua Tennis. I usually play as Jim Courier or Tim Henman.
Anyway, back to the movie–Troy is a compressed version of the Iliad, the story of how a prince of Troy named Paris, played by Orlando Bloom, steals the heart of Helen of Sparta and spirits her away to become Helen of Troy. Helen’s husband, the king of Sparta, is none too pleased and he asks his brother Agememnon to wage war against Troy. Agememnon brings along the mightiest warrior in Greece, Achilles (Brad Pitt). Rounding out the beefcake-heavy cast is Eric Bana playing Paris’ brother Hector.
Yes there’s a big somewhat confusing number of players in the cast, but then it is a huge drama that they’re trying to compress into a 2-1/2 hour movie. Yes the movie runs kinda long but I never really noticed it–there’s lots of action and fighting and only minimal interruptions for bothersome things like plot and character development. At the end of the day this is a pure summer action flick and a pretty darned good one at that.
If I have a complaint, it’s that some of the little things are so unrealistic. Like the fact that neither Bloom nor Pitt ever shows evidence of a beard–it’s like they had triple-blade shavers in ancient Greece. And Bloom just should never shoot a bow-and-arrow in a movie ever again, because when he does it here in Troy you are instantly reminded of his Legolas character from Lord of the Rings.
But otherwise it’s a good summer escape. Definitely worth catching on the big screen, don’t wait for the DVD.
TrackBack URI