Troy

[luxxi]

It sucks. Big time. I know this isn't Illiad but they could follow it a bit more. Battle scenes are as crappy as in LOTR, background of heroes is only hinted, gods aren't featured, siege lasts 10 years but characters stay the same and have same fresh wounds as in the beginning.

Crappines of this movie can easily challenge crappines of LOTR/ROTK and The Last Samurai.

[spyretto]

wow, it does? And I had hopes for this one

[karxwp]

if you like greek mythology and epic stuff you will like it but it's true the movie is like in a rush :P the siege that lasted 10 years they put it like if it lasted a friggin month...also Paris is portrayed as a pathetic sisi girl :P Hector is nice but still there are a lot of plot holes same with Achilles :P

Also no gods = -10 points
No background story = -10 the judge of Paris with Athena, hera and Afrodite that unleashed the war (because Paris leaned toward Afrodite and she made him to fall in love with the most beautiful woman (helena))
Too straight! = everybody knows Patroclo was Achille's best friend and lover NOT a fucking cousin :P -10 points
Battles = too quick
Ending too weak :P

still you can enjoy it a little :P

[kishkash]

not bad...still wrong...but not bad...

brad pit nakey a lot?? TOTALLY worth it *off to have a few quiet moments with herself*

[Lux]

also, achilles never sees the inside of troy. and the ships didnt sail behind some mountain, they sailed just past the horizon so the trojans can't see them...
i guess i'm just nitpicking over details. as a blockbuster it wasn't bad, shallow and fairly entertaining but as a movie adaptation of the actual story it kind of sucked.

[karxwp]

yeah but people will drool over Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana and Diane Kruger :P all are very cute people :P atractive people to be honest :P

[Lux]

exactly. the acters are good looking enough that ppl won't notice the missed details. i didn't mind, brad pitt alone worth the 2:43 hrs.

[karxwp]

yeah I think the same :P although Orlando Bloom is quite cute too :P although too stupid in the story...it's such a shame to seeing him as a loser after being the almighty Legolas in LOTR

[Kate]

"Troy's" screenplay may not be up to its Homeric source, but what movie on this book could be? "Troy" pays dues to the great epic poem while generating some real cinematic martial poetry of its own - and never forgetting, as it does, that war is truly hell.

It's a stunningly handsome film, with an equally stunning cast and engrossing story, and a movie like this almost has to reach the top ranks in its class to succeed. Most of the acting, though, has a stark simplicity. And if Pitt tends to dominate the screen, it's because he's deified by Petersen and Roger Pratt's camera eye. Pitt's acting is often underrated because he's so photogenic; here his looks are integral to the role, the movie's whole sense of heroic beauty.

What can I say? I enjoyed every minut of the movie.

[rosh]

katbeidar i think perhaps you enjoyed the eye candy a lot and therefore the movie was worthwhile heh. this is a movie i wouldnt mind seeing for the cinematography if for no other reason.

[taty994945]

so do u get to see brad pitt's dick?

[luxxi]

Originally Posted by taty994945

so do u get to see brad pitt's dick?

Luckilly no.

[zebu]

far too many diffrences from the original story. with menelay getting killed so early and not him going back with helen, and agamemnon getting killed and so many more,too much changes for me

but still actors look great

[russkayatatu]

I haven't seen the movie, although I have some friends who liked it.

That it doesn't follow the Homeric text is not surprising, nor is it necessarily a bad thing - after all, the stories and myths are ancient and have been reworked by many poets; Homer's is just one variation on the themes. And Hollywood is taking the myths and casting them in its own version ... the film, I bet, tells you much more about 21st-century Western culture than about ancient Greece.

[PowerPuff Grrl]

also Paris is portrayed as a pathetic sisi girl

But I remember Paris always being a pathetic sissy girl.

Anyhoo, if anything this movie has shown me things that was either revealing or reaffirming:
-Orlando Bloom is a horrible actor, just as I always suspected. No buddy, that one-expression-fits-all shitck isn't working. When a freaking baby out-acts you, you know you suck.
-Hector was hot as sh!t. Brad Who? Funny really, Eric Bana underwhelming in The Hulk. Figures though, everybody involved that dreck was horrible.

Anyhoo, another thing the movie got wrong was that Helen was supposed to be beautiful, not average at best. I could find better looking women and girls at my local mall.

[Bitty2002]

Here's a review I found on KTLA.com:

'Troy'

Achilles, Hector and Paris tromp through a 'Troy' that is half Hollywood, half 'Illiad.'

By Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

May 12, 2004

4 stars (out of 4)

"Troy"--Wolfgang Petersen's spectacular, literate saga of the Trojan War -may have been preposterously expensive ($175 million or so), but it's also in a league with Hollywood's top historical epics, ancient or otherwise. It's stunningly handsome film, with an equally stunning cast and engrossing story-and a movie like this almost has to reach the top ranks in its class to succeed. With its outsize budget and dense, rich literary-historical source (Homer's "Iliad"), it's a huge gamble in today's youth-dominated blockbuster movie market.

But like Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" or David Lean's 1960s epics "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago," this is a prodigal-spending movie with prodigious rewards: a battle epic that laces spectacle with psychology, bloody warfare with eroticism, grand adventure with back-stabbing politics.

Petersen follows the classic epic formula; he gives us a charismatic cast, headed by a quartet of talented hunks--Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric ("The Hulk") Bana as Hector, Sean Bean as Odysseus (Ulysses) and Orlando Bloom as Paris.

At the center of "Troy" is the conflict between the story's two great heroes: noble, self-sacrificing Hector and rebellious, egotistic Achilles, two great warriors who are caught in a political trap, subject to the whims and moral flaws of their leaders and peers. Hector is the brother of the impulsive, randy Paris, who steals away Helen (Diane Kruger), the beautiful wife of surly Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson)--thereby giving the Mycenaeans' wily king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) the excuse he needs to unite a huge army, crush Troy and give him dominion over the Aegean region.

Achilles is Agamemnon's top warrior, seemingly invincible on the battlefield (save for his legendary "heel"), but unruly and disrespectful to his despised superiors Agamemnon and Menelaus. Seeing both for what they really are, he saves his loyalties for his faithful legions, the Myrmidons, his cousin-buddy Patroclus (Garrett Hedlund), his mother Thetis (Julie Christie) and Briseis (Rose Byrne), a lovely slave girl he steals from the Trojan Apollonian temple.

Homer's Gods are absent here; amorality and power politics hold sway. (Writer David Benioff of "The 25th Hour" does borrow the Trojan Horse from Virgil's "Aeneid.") But Pitt's Achilles may be writer Benioff's most interesting conception. Whereas generations ago Achilles was damned as selfish, then, more recently, psychoanalyzed as a gay man in love with Patroclus, Pitt plays him as a rebel samurai. He's right to defy the liar-tyrant Agamemnon and save his truest respect for Hector, the man he must kill, and Priam, Hector's brave father.

There is depth to the characters: Achilles' revolt, Hector's tormented loyalty, Paris and Helen's impetuous lust, Odysseus's cunning pragmatism, Agamemnon's evil bullying, Menelaus' cloddish jealousy. The single best-acted scene--Priam's moving appeal to Achilles after the battle with Hector--lays bare most of the emotions churning under the whole movie.

Most of the acting, though, has a stark simplicity. And if Pitt tends to dominate the screen, it's because he's deified by Petersen and Roger Pratt's camera eye. Pitt's acting is often underrated because he's so photogenic; here his looks are integral to the role, the movie's whole sense of heroic beauty.

Movie epics, from Cecil B. DeMille's on, often awe us with their logistic feats and battles and make us groan at their corniness. "Troy" is a movie that uses today's vast technological resources--digitized crowds and battles, computerized scenery--to stunning effect. Petersen and his technicians create the walled city of Troy, the oceanside beach front, the complex massed battles of thousands and the fierce individual fights with amazing effectiveness.

But epics like this, especially DeMille's, were usually susceptible to the charges of historical travesty and "Troy" isn't immune. Benioff condenses the 10-year Trojan war into a few weeks and Petersen presents his armies of hunks with a near-homoerotic intensity that reminds you of both his World War II masterpiece "Das Boot" and his gay drama "The Consequence." Pitt's Achilles is also handed some improbable romantic melodrama at the end.

In a way, this nearly three-hour movie is a huge, all-star sword-and-sandals epic, but it has all kinds of compensating rewards: flair and sweep, raging excitement, intriguing characters, visual grandeur--and a scenic force and dramatic intelligence.

Benioff's screenplay may not be up to its Homeric source, but what movie on this book could be? "Troy" pays dues to the great epic poem while generating some real cinematic martial poetry of its own--and never forgetting, as it does, that war is truly hell.

[kishkash]

Originally Posted by PowerPuff Grrl

I could find better looking women and girls at my local mall.

my sentiments exactly

the face that sunk a thousand ships? more like the face that couldn't hawk free pretzel bits on a tray with 4 different dipping sauces

[teeny]

*arrives late*

It's awsome.. admitted I'm not the best critic to count on when it comes to a Brad Pitt movie, but this one was great.

I never read the Illiad, since we read Odyssus (or whatever in English) instead. But don't think a direct adaption would do. Seen a tv show of Odyssus that included the Gods and such, and it was really bad. Having the Gods in there ruins the story when being told today I'd say.

But the movie as it is is great. Pitt and Bana did a suberb job in acting skills. Must say that Helen didn't really have a lot to work at.. looking pretty seems to be the only aspect to the role.
Fight scenes and music really similar to Gladiator. That I didn't mind at all since I loved that one aswell..

All in all.. when will the dvd arrive? And I'm going to see it again soon for sure

[zebu]

Originally Posted by teeny

I never read the Illiad, since we read Odyssus (or whatever in English) instead. But don't think a direct adaption would do. Seen a tv show of Odyssus that included the Gods and such, and it was really bad. Having the Gods in there ruins the story when being told today I'd say.

if ure talking about the tv show with armand assante, i thought it was great. better then troy

its true there r more authors who wrote about that period, but none of them said the story this way. i mean theres a famous story where klitemnestre kills her husband agamemnon with her lover when he comes home and here he gets killed in troy

[teeny]

that was the one.. the tv show. There were scenes that worked well, but other just really sucked big time.

It's one way to tell the story.. I guess it doesn't work for all. Think one problem is that it's a well known story. It's easier to shoot a movie like Gladiator because few know how the storyline went. And if looking at the timeline in that one more than 12 years are being skipped or ignored. Of course could be that Lucius just never grow an inch
*stops babbeling*

Just saying that one can't expect a word by word adaption. And either one like it or don't