Troy
DVD Release
Never have so many pixels died in vain.

Watching the closing sequence, I see. I sift through the ashes of the hours I spent watching this film. I watch as the flames carry the smoke towards heaven, and I wonder what the heck they were thinking.

It's definately pretty. I'll grant them that. The production crew all needs a big hand. Troy was gorgeous, the locations were spectacular, and the historical details in the ships and the encampments was great. The cast was beautiful - landscape appreciation value for all. But even the eye-candy can't stretch to cover the gaping flaws in the rest of it.

And where was the supposed homoerotic stuff between Achilles and Patroclus?! Everyone made such a big deal about it, but I didn't see a bloody thing that would have been out of place in a locker-room of towel-snapping boys. Have people gotten so innured to sex that they can't imagine any other reason for loyalty or feeling? He was his cousin, his guardian, his teacher, and yes, in the real story there were some interesting elements to their relationship. But none of that was here in the film.

The story has been beheaded. You know that when you go to a film that's adapted from something else, there are things that are going to be trimmed out and changed. It just has to happen. However, most literary adaptations try to nibble off the toes, or niggle off a corner here or there to try to fit. This film drove a bronze spear right between the story's third and fourth cervical vertebrae. Removing all the Olympian maneuvers behind the events leaves us with nothing but pettiness.

There are the sparse bare bones of a story of mortal pride and ambition, but they can't carry the rest of the historical weight. And they sure can't carry the weight of that marqee. Criminitly! Peter O'Toole, Brian Cox, Brad Pitt, Brendan Gleeson, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Saffron Burrows. And the list just keeps going. Maybe we can get our two former professional wrestlers (Nathan Jones as Boagrius and Tyler Mane as Ajax) to handle the job.

I know it was "inspired" by the Illiad, but come on! This is a little ridiculous. Helen wasn't forced to marry Menelaus - she chose him out of a lineup her father set up because there were too many kings chasing her. Achilles had a woman who was named Briseis, but the acolyte of Apollo was Criseis - not even the same chick. The Greeks attack the Trojans at night, not the other way around. And it wasn't a full-on battle, but a raiding party led by Odysseus and Diomedes (who is nowhere, just like this battle). And for that matter, Oddyseus is also the brother of Agamemnon and Menelaus - where is his grief and his weight on their choices? Ajax doesn't die - there are stories written about his return home, going mad and his death by suicide. Menelaus isn't killed by Hector. Hector's the one who gets stabbed in the throat, not Patroclus. Agamemnon doesn't die at Briseis' hand (much longer and cooler story, actually). Achilles is dead before the Trojan horse is even thought of. Achilles had five ships, not one, and more than 50 Myrmidons. Achilles charges out to kill Hector in the midst of battle, not by calling him out behind the gym. He certainly wasn't wailing like a throat-cut banshee in front of the walls of Troy like that. It's Agamemnon who pisses off Apollo with his overweening pride, his lack of piety and his attacking of the city, not Achilles' adventures in holy wealth redistribution. There was something weird with Priam's death, but I can't remember. We moaned and complained when they chopped 19 days out of Fellowship of the Ring between Bree and Rivendell - they cut nine years out of this one.

Even if we take the newly-wrought story at face value, the attempt to pin the actions on the mortals tortures the characters out of shape. Paris went from a dupe of the arrogant gods to a cowardly, skirt-sniffing slut. Achilles' now seemingly mortal mother and the loss of the rest of his divine attributes turns him into a strangely distorted and pathetic Launcelot. Hector's biggest claim to fame (the domesticating of the horse and the invention of cavalry) went unheard until the penultimate line. Oddyseus was as "Sharpe" as he should have been in a few places, but he spent most of the rest of the time as a royal errand-boy.

Don't get me started on the royal women. That gal they picked for Helen is a very beautiful girl, but with no vengeful goddess to drive her she just seems stupid and petty. Plus, with the story change it really wasn't her face that launched a thousand ships, but her naughty bits and lack of self-control. It wasn't Aphrodite's jealousy over her beauty that helped get things started but her matress-dancing with Paris. It feels cheap. You may remember Andromache as Angel from the film Wing Commander so you know she can apply boot to seat if necessary. Unfortunately, the script seems to have missed the parts of the story where her steel spine helped save the remnants of her people; all that was left was her looking terrified. Briseis is covering two parts with one job here, and neither one of them get handled well.

I know Wolfgang Peterson can do better than this. He directed "Das Boot", and he managed a good re-telling of the story. As a director he has plenty of clout to give them exact anatomical directions as to where they should have stored this screenplay, and get someone in there who has at least read the source materials and can make intelligent adjustments. And he better get it back together quick, fast and in a hurry. He's been tapped to make the filmed version of "Ender's Game", and if he hoses that up it's not going to be pretty.