Troy

Troy was supposed to be epic. It was supposed to tell the story of the most legendary warrior of all time, and the face that launched a thousand ships, and the most crazy-awesome names in Greek history/mythology (Agamemnon, anyone?), and a whole lot of other stuff. It was not supposed to be a really dull movie.



Directed By: Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One, The NeverEnding Story)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom
Plot Summary: "F***ing Helen... It's this chick's fault we had to read The Odyssey."

Troy takes forever to get started. And, in fact, it never really does. There are very specific moments of this movie that are played up more than the rest of the overdramatic "Hey, check out how EPIC this movie is" dialogue, like the moment near the beginning when Achilles (Pitt) stabs that big competitor in the shoulder and kills him. But this movie could've learned a thing or two from 300 (yes, 300, that stellar example of American cinema), which was 45 minutes shorter than Troy. We wanted the doomed King Leonidas to defeat Xerxes. Here, we didn't care if the doomed Achilles triumphed over... whatever he was trying to triumph over.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Is this where Brad Pitt's having sex and NOT fighting? Is that the story of Brad Pitt's whole life?"
--"Oh, the amount of things that out-act Orlando Bloom in this movie... including his own hair."
--"IT'S BRAD PITT'S ASS!"
--"Ouch... Let's evaluate what naked boobs must feel like against this weird armadillo armor he's wearing... You KNOW stuff's getting pinched."
--"Trojan hair is doing great things here. Look at the little gold barrettes! Troy's kinda fabulous."
--"Orlando Bloom's two faces: Constipated and Stoned."
--"So you're telling me... Karl from Love Actually was the tranny man in 300?"
--"This f***ing movie... is still going..."

"God, Paris is such a little bitch!"

We can't think of a more shameful moment for the Orlando Bloom fangirls than to see him crawling in the dirt to clutch Eric Bana's legs after Brendan Gleeson kicks the crap out of him. Paris (Bloom) kidnaps Helen (Diane Kruger), then says he's sorry, but proceeds to hide behind his big brother, Hector (Bana), instead of leading the war he started. Paris ruins EVERYONE'S lives. We realize this is more of an issue with Paris's character than the actual movie, since this is how things go down in The Iliad (the prequel to The Odyssey), but maybe if Bloom could act his way out of a period piece, this wouldn't have been so noticeable. Good actors can make even the most pitiful characters sympathetic.

This movie was just plain boring. After the first hour or so, we were amazed to look at the timestamp and see that we still... weren't... done. We had an hour and forty minutes left of this drudgery. Every scene could've been cut by a full minute. The pacing was painfully slow. And by the time we got to the pivotal fight between Achilles and Hector, we were so over the whole thing that we put the movie on mute and played Britney Spears's "Baby (One More Time)" over the scene. And it was hysterical.

The Best Part: Other than the Britney insertion, the moment when Achilles stabs Big Competitor in the shoulder and then just peaces out was pretty bad-ass. Also, male and female MVPs in the acting category: Peter O'Toole as the dignified King Priam of Troy, and Rose Byrne as Briseis, cousin of Hector and Paris, who was kidnapped to become Achilles's prize and then fell in love with him.

The Worst Part: This movie was seriously too long and slow-paced, and suffered from a severe case of ADD in terms of focusing on any one character enough to make us care.

Eh. We've seen better war epics, and we've seen worse. This one's a C-.

(Poster © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)