RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Troy

Medicore movie.

Definitely the feeling of "been there, seen that." There's only so many epic-battle movies a person can see, and this movie seems to be made pre-LOTR. That is, it's "not epic enough." I also was a bit bored because maybe I'm a little TOO familiar with the source material. Still some nice moments though. Brad Pitt played a very iconic badass as Achilles, which got very old about an hour in. That's the other thing, the movie was way too long. 2 hours and 45 minutes. It's crazy! Especially considering that the entire movie is one ongoing battle, except for the first parts.

By the way, love how the Trojan War was condensed to take place in two weeks total.

You read Age of Bronze. You have been there.

movie? not so good. at all.

special effects? none. zero. adding extra characters to the fight scenes, or, ooh, look, extra boats! but essentially, that was it.

musical score? hideous. some chick wailing for endless amounts of time. like music-less excerpts from a christina aguilara song.

dialog? poor. corny. cliched. sometimes with accents, sometimes without.

scenery? weak. wobbling golden statues. greece, in its prime, looking like modern day ruins.

acting? pretty bad. i'm actually a fan of brad pitt. i've defended him in discussions before. i think he gets a really bad rep, and that he's shown a lot of talent in quite a few of his roles. plus, he's so dreamy! ... but this movie? holy crap, was he horrible in it. pretty much justified people who believe him talentless. dramatic pauses where he looks constipated. deep thinking scenes ripped from bill and ted's. and achilles didn't hog all of the suck for himself -- there was plenty to go around.

footage? old. roughly 25 years old. much of the movie was shot like a 1970s action film. specifically, one from europe or australia that was later dubbed with american english. weird zooming techniques, characters temporarily out of focus, things appearing grainy when there's no reason it should. just bad.

fight scenes? not bad. some were actually pretty cool. hector vs. achilles was well played, but most were over too quickly. paris going from uberwuss to becoming legolas was a bit much, too.

comparisons to the great books? not much. the general story is there, minus every appearance and mention of a god. ...and greatness.

conclusion?

if you're not going to see one hollywood blockbuster this summer -- make it troy!

I saw Van Helsing and Troy last week....

An epic it was not. THe "Wailing" womans voice was stolen from Gladiator, I'm certian of it. And I couldn't help but laugh when Orlando Bloom picked up a bow and was practicing his archery. In fact several people laughed, that I heard. It is nice to know that Legolas is still a good shot. Brad Pitt was...Brad Pitt. It is good to know that he got back into his "Thelma and Louise" shape for the scenes in this movie. They also could have shaved some time off the movie...like 45 minuets. I don't know it seemed to go on a lot longer then it needed to.

It was a disapointment with all the hype.

...counting down for Harry Potter though...

I think the big movie this year will be Seed of Chucky.



Oscar written ALL over it.

Just saw it tonight. I doubt I'll be buying this dvd to watch over and over again but I definitely don't regret seeing it. There is some entertainment value to be had. Granted there were elements that just made this movie fall short...or suck a little bit. But there were some sweet duals and battle sequences. I have always been a sucker for greek mythology so I guess the 'ooh I know whats gonna happen' factor kicks in every now n then. So youre probably more apt to enjoy it if youve enjoyed reading greek mythology in high school n shit.

Pros: Fight scenes, lotta boats, violence, Iliad characters!

Cons: Weak screenplay moments, soundtrack, sometimes feels gay


I don't know if this can actually be called a review...but take from it what you can.

Can't wait to see it. How big of a part does Odyssues have in the movie? He was always a fav character of mine, and Sean Bean is on 'The Cowgirl's List'...

While I'm eager to see the movie, I kind of wish they retained all the Gods in it. I liked it when Athena and Ares fought.

Oh Yeah!

Con: No gods

Yeah, no gods (visually, except for statues), but they are mentioned a whole lot. As for Odysseus he is here and there. Mainly to convince Achilles to fight and such. He thinks up the horse, watches the battle between Achilles (Patroclus) and Hector, and has some fighting scenes.



I liked the movie, it was entertaining enough. I knew it was changed or would not follow exactly the events from The Illiad/Aeneid/Odyssey. The "woman wailing" did get annoying sometimes, but I liked the duels and battles. Didn't even recognize that Tyler Mane (Sabertooth) was Ajax, heh. And that guy was freaking HUGE that Achilles took down in one strike at Thessaly. I think his name was Boagrius (former WWE wrestler Nathan Jones). That scene was pretty cool.

I saw this movie this past Saturday. I thought it was really good. The acting was a little stiff (and Eric Bana seems to only have one facial expression), but it was still enjoyable. I think the main problem was that there were too many characters to try and add in and expound upon for one film. This is more than likely why the Gods were excluded, but I like the ambiguous nature that the film portrays them in. They could exist. They might not. We'll never know. And I think they were going for a more historical feel than a fantasy one. After all, if you do a fantasty film with players from the LOTR trilogy, you're just going to be compared to LOTR.

The special effects were great. They were there to enhance the film and not BE the film. The entire thing just looked great. And it was very well paced. Two-plus hours went by without it feeling like two-plus hours. The film was built very well. The slower scenes with character interaction were bookended by fight scenes that kept it moving right along. Wolfgang Peterson knows how to make a movie. I think he fell short of his desire to make the straight-forward good vs. evil movie that he's been touting this as in the press. There were just too many shades of grey for that.

All in all, a good movie that was worth my time and money.

I spent more time trying to figure out that Odysseus was Boromir from LOTR then really paying attention to the flick itself. Perhaps I need to see it over again to appreciate it.

But I agree that when you are involved with a movie like LOTR, from that point on you'll be compared and associated to it. Like I still here people call Carrie Fisher "Princess Leia".

006 dominates.

Oh yeah, 006 can dominate!

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Danny said:

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Stareena said:
I spent more time trying to figure out that Odysseus was Boromir from LOTR then really paying attention to the flick itself.

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And he's Trevalyan from Goldeneye!

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AND Farmer Gray from Black Beauty!

Just saw it, liked it, liked it alot.

The ultimate climax for me being the Hector vs. Achilles. That fight was friggin awesome, better than Matrix fights and all those cheezy special effects fights. (though those were good too)

Troy fully lived up to my expectations!

Right...so...saw Troy yesterday. My comments.

1. Yeah, it wasn't a perfect adaptation of Homer's Illiad. But that actually didn't bother me. Whatever they changed in the story, they manage to smooth everything over so there weren't any massive plot holes. Which is fine by me. The same thing happened in the recent film The Count of Monte Cristo, based on Alexander Dumas's novel. Yeah, things were changed, but the themes of the original work were preserved. Lord of the Rings would be another example where things were 'tweaked' but the movie was still great.

2. I expected a 'good guy vs. bad guy movie'. It wasn't! This was the first adaptation I've seen that made Hector a sympathetic character. Everyone had their good and bad moments. Odysseus was probably had the least negative characterization, but since The Odyssey is pretty well-known, most people already know the King of Ithica's weakness (read: nymphs).

Great stories are not 'good vs. evil'. It's 'good vs. good'. Priam's a better king than Agamemnon. Hector is more honorable in battle than Achilles. But both Priam and Hector, by defending Paris, are morally weakened.

3. The concepts -- gone are the omipresent pagan gods. Hector even goes so far to question why Apollo didn't strike Achilles down. Athena doesn't battle Ares. Aphroditie doesn't drag Helen from her home -- Paris kidnaps her. This made Troy more relavent to modern soliders than if the supernatural element had been included. While I agree seeing some of the gods would have kicked ass...the lack of Zues and his family was kind of refreshing...no one likes 'Dues ex machina' anymore anyways.

All in all, I love this movie. I think it's seconded only to Ben-Hur as my favorite Greek-Roman movie (I could talk forever about how much I loved Ben-Hur). I really hope either Eric Bana or Peter O'Toole get 'Best Supporting Actor' at the Oscars. The music was the only real disappointment. Everyone looked hot in the movie, and my roomie finally agreed with me on Sean Bean's hotness. Why they gave him a helmet with what looked like a brush on top, I dunno.

And the best part is...this movie has the potential to spawn two sequals. Besides The Odyssey, which is the obvious option...did anyone else notice the reference to The Anied?