I think it started going downhill as soon as the studio decided to call it Troy instead of the proper but apparently market-unfriendly The Iliad. But what the hell, I’ll probably watch it anyway.
If the trailer’s any indication I already saw the “epic” battle scenes in the first 10 minutes of Fellowship of the Ring, so I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to see it in the theatre or not. Music sounds pretty good though.
Brad Pitt is an okay choice in my mind. He may be a pretty boy but anyone that denies his acting ability either hasn’t seen *12 Monkeys * or Fight Club or is just in denial. He’ll never be Ian McKellan, obviously, but he’s still one of the better actors of the past decade.
And also, Troy, sadly, is not The Illiad. Not only does it cover aspects of the war that Homer did not, it takes out most of the gods’ interactions. It’s a pretty loose adaptation overall.
Please, please, please tell me that it’s going to be better at least than that USA channel movie Helen of Troy. I tried to watch it, honest I did, but when it got to where people were believing Cassandra, I had to turn it off.
On the other hand, early reviews have been excellent, and Eric Bana (who plays Hector) is supposed to be fantastic. I don’t doubt that it will be the “big budget blockbuster” interpretation of Homer, but that worked fine for LOTR, and Petersen is a solid director who is most at home making R-rating flicks, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
Pitt is just not someone I would consider even remotely warrior-like. He’s just, well, not my idea of an epic hero. He’s too small, or too pretty, or something. Though I think he could do the “Achilles sulking in his tent” scenes pretty well.
That’s right before he and Helen go hunting Greeks and keep shouting out their score.
I don’t hate Brad Pitt, I think he’s done some great work, but I think he’s totally wrong for this role. Something about the movie just looks terrible. Like in the trailer, there’s this huge fleet of ships, and I want to think “Oh, cool!”…but it just looks lame.