I ended up buying this one on DVD because it fascinates me. In many ways, it is well done. I now take the departures from the Real Story as cases of – “Try and spot what they changed here, and why”. It looks damned gorgeous, if not really accurate – more like The Way The Trojan War Shoulda Looked, instead of the way it probably did. Compare this with the Hallmark TV version of The Odyssey – Odysseus’ home looks pretty much the way a Bronze Age lord’s house really would have looked, and ladt Penelope presses her own olive oil. A far cry from the overblown enormous stone Spartan palaces of Troy (That says it all right there – “Spartan palaces”)
I think I get the same buzz from this that I do from Starship Troopers – gorgeous to look at, but a completelt wrong interpretation of the original.
There were definitely things I liked. I thought they completely rocked the casting. Characterization wasn’t bad, either. Visually, great. The Achilles and Hector battle scenes weren’t whitewashed and pretty - they were brutal and great fighting.
I’m more annoyed by bad movies that COULD have been good than movies that are irredeemably bad.
Something I thought was ironic: I thought that this was the best performance by Peter O’Toole that I’d seen in years. He wasn’t just walking around acting like Peter O’Toole as he’s done a few times over the past few decades, but actually acting and showing emotion (complex ones at that) and his scene with Brad Pitt (“You’re my enemy tonight… but even enemies can respect each other”) was particularly well carried. Then I read that O’Toole hated the director, trashed him in public and said if he lives to be 100 he’ll never act with him again.
I wonder if it’s because the director made him get off his noble Oscar winning ass and perform.
I thought it was cool when they first showed Achilles do his “I’m so quick, step-to-the-side stab trick” but then he kept on doing it throughout the movie. THINK OF ANOTHER COOL TRICK FOR ACHILLES!
It’s a little silly to atlk about historical accuracy. IIRC, when they found Troy it turned out to resemble the great cities of the Middle East less than it did the Branch Davidian Compund.
I remember when I saw it with my sister, though. She askes, “Why does Odysseus have a mullet?”
“Well,” I said, “he is from Ithaca.”
It depends on how you define “win”, I suppose. He received an Oscar for his body of work in 2003, but has never won one for an individual film (though he’s been nominated many times).
Of course, you’re right. I completely forgot the “Lifetime Achievement” Award, which is I suppose a real Oscar[sup]®[/sup], although he has still never won “the lovely bugger outright.”
I also thought this movie deserved more credit than it got.
The fighting was generally well done, especially the individual battles. I’m a martial arts geek, so I’m kind of picky about fight scenes. The Hector-Achilles fight was very nice. The change in timeline makes sense to me also. A siege of ten years with such a long supply line and a situation that would make it very difficult and dangerous for a besieging army to raid the surrounding countryside is just not believable. Ten months would be pushing it.
I liked the more believable motivations for the characters and the removal of the gods from the story. When reading the Iliad way back in high school, I thought that Achilles was just a whiny arrogant bitch and that there was basically no reason for him to be there. I found it annoying that the other Greeks didn’t just tell him to pack his shit and go the hell home when he was sulking in his tent. Yes, I know there’s supposed to be a lesson about hubris there, but I was rooting for his eventual death after his first tantrum. The Achilles presented in this film is a more credible and better hero, with realistic flaws.
Things I didn’t like, however, were the semi-happy ending and flat dialog in a few places. Overall, it’s a good movie with some non-fatal flaws that got slammed more than it deserved.
I liked Achilles’ death, sprawled on the floor with an arrow in his heel. I loved the final fight between Hector and Achilles, and I thought Peter O’Toole acted the hell out of the movie.
I also walked out thinking that Eric Bana is, my GOD, sex on legs, and Brad Pitt looked every one of his 40 years, yuck.
I went and saw it with a couple of girls from my Latin class, with whom I’d studied book II of the Aenid. We cheered for the Trojans, to the confusion of the rest of the theater, I think.
I liked Achilles’ death, sprawled on the floor with an arrow in his heel. I loved the final fight between Hector and Achilles, and I thought Peter O’Toole acted the hell out of the movie.
I also walked out thinking that Eric Bana is, my GOD, sex on legs, and Brad Pitt looked every one of his 40 years, yuck.
I went and saw it with a couple of girls from my Latin class, with whom I’d studied book II of the Aenid. We cheered for the Trojans, to the confusion of the rest of the theater, I think.
I noticed that Achilles pulled the arrows from his chest before collapsing and dying, so that someone who came upon his body would have found only the arrow in his heel. Perhaps the filmmakers were suggesting that as the source of the legend?
