Troy - 1/5

Synopsis:
Good: pretty people, decent choreography
Bad: everything else

What an abomination of a movie. Never have I seen such glorious source material shit upon with such a copious torrent of creamy liquid outpouring. How could someone have possibly created such offal out of the greatest story ever to arise out of Western civilization? That monumental failure, that catastrophic destruction, that should be the enduring legacy of this film.

From nearly the first scene on, the Homeric mythology is distorted and destroyed. These changes are tolerable… until the first storming of the Trojan beach by Achilles and his 50 (50?!?) Myrmidons. It was so pathetic and awful and offensive that I almost had to turn off the movie. Temple of Apollo? No massive monomachia with one of the lesser princes? Achilles sitting and greeting Hector? So they can have a expositional, poorly-delivered dialogue? The gods will surely drag the fucknut who wrote that screen from the back of their chariots for all eternity, and the producer who approved it shall be fed to the dogs.

On the plus side, the choreography isn’t bad. There’s a nice shot of an Achilles block of an arrow with a blind shield move to his back. Telegraphing that jump-stab thing, though. You know if Achilles was actually Achilles size, he wouldn’t have to jump.

This thing, this movie… it is no Iliad. No gods, no spoils, no grandeur, no pathos. Instead, it is a paint-by-numbers action piece with delusions of grandeur. Shame on all who were involved in making this unmasticated lobotomized robotron of an “epic.” Remember how Demi Moore said “no one reads it anyway” to the critics of the Scarlet Letter? I’m wondering if any of the people involved with this movie bothered to read the Iliad.

Or to quote Roger Ebert: Homer’s estate should sue. (that Ebert review is outstanding, you really should read it)

Menelaus: too old

Helen: wrong actress, need someone more voluptuous (she has had 3 kids, remember), with olive skin and dark hair, not this anorexic waif. Bellucci, maybe. Helen was strong, manipulative, and conniving whereas this Helen was weak and captive. The most beautiful woman in history? Only if you like Anglo toothpicks.

Achilles: Pitt is wrong. Also, he can’t do this character. Too small, too old. He would be better as Hector or Paris. Someone of the Rock’s size but with acting chops would be better. Huge. Prideful. Headstrong. Schwarzenneger in his prime. Remember, Achilles was second only to Big Ajax in size. p.s. in the movie… Patroklos and Achilles are not lovers. JFC.

The Myrmidons are also shortshrifted. Achilles brought thousands of his ants with him, not one boat with 50 men.

Patroklos: too young. The “real” Patroclus was older than Achilles.

Hektor: Bana’s alright, I guess. Not much with the commanding presence, though.

Odysseus: Sean Bean is no Odysseus. Crafty, conniving, honor is for fools. Clooney would make a great Odysseus, but he’s too pretty. Someone uglier, shorter, wider. Robin Williams-type body.

Paris: Bloom isn’t pretty enough, but apparently I’m in the minority there. Regardless of his looks, he has zero sex appeal and his acting is even worse. Watching him is like watching nails on chalkboard. The only thing more brain-screechingly bad than Orlando Bloom in this movie is the score. I didn’t know Enya was Greek (or Trojan)!

I started to compile a list of major wha’thefu’s?!? about the discrepancies between the movie and the epic, but someone’s already beaten me to it. I’ll reprint the major ones here, because they truly are stunningly different.

* The war took ten years, not seventeen days
* Achilles was dead by the time the Horse was built and deployed
* Menelaus wasn’t killed by Hektor
* Menelaus got Helen in the end (Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, visits them in Sparta in Book 4 of the Odyssey, ten years after the war)
* Agamemnon was killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, back in Greece, immediately after the war
* Aias (Ajax) was not killed by Hektor; he committed suicide when not given the armor of Achilles after Achilles’ death [ed. note: Ajax and Hektor fought to a standstill in monomachia. Neither could beat the other and thus became friends/respected adversaries]
* Paris died at Troy (of an arrow wound, appropriately) [ed. note: to the eye]
* Andromache, Hektor’s wife, was captured and enslaved
* Baby Astyanax, Hektor’s son, was tossed off the walls after having his brains bashed out by Odysseus
* Patroklos was older, not younger than Achilles and was not his cousin
* Briseis was from Lyrnessos, not Troy, and was neither a priestess of any kind nor the cousin of Hektor

Yes, it’s that bad. He also has some in the “minor” section that I think are major, like…

* Hektor not being in Sparta when Helen is abducted/leaves
* Achilles mother is a sea-goddess
* Almost all of the fighting was with spears [ed. note: second were bows, then swords]
* Aeneas, whom Paris meets entering the tunnel at the end, was not a kid, but a warrior who had fought Achilles on the battlefield
* Hektor lost his nerve and ran from Achilles (all the way round the city three times), before facing him for the final shootout
* Helen took up with another Trojan, Deiphobus, after the death of Paris
* Paris ran from his first
etc etc.

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