Troy
So Hollywood has decided to give us yet another historical epic film, much like Gladiator. This time, however, they failed. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but it's not good. Entertaining maybe, but not good. So my first problem is the writing. The writing sort of sums the movie up nicely. It was terrible writing or dialogue, but it didn't fit. If you're gonna make a movie that tries to be true to the original story, write dialogue for that original story. The writing we get in this movie is more fitting for some modern conflict, not a story set thousands of years ago. Add to this poor performances by a number of the actors (most noteablly Eric Bana) and the dialogue is just crap. There were come good performances too, that tried to make the dialogue seem plausible, but it's hard with writing like this.
Second problem, the camera work. The shots were so unispired, and at times cliche, that I just got frustrated. If you're gonna have us sit through epic battles and beautiful scenes at least present them to us in a good way. Some of the shots were taken straight out of low-budget Chinese actions flicks, which aren't exactly known for their cinematography.
All was not lost though. There are plenty of saving graces in the movie. The apathetic attitude of Achilles portrayed by Brad Pitt was great. As well as the nice job done by Brian Cox (two of my favorite actors). The battles were also very nicely down. It really gave the whole story an epic feel to it. I must say though, the conflict between Achilles and Hector (Bana) did seem like it would fit better in say Soul Calibur, but that made it all the more enjoyable. I mean by that point I had lost faith in finding a respectable, historical movie. At that point I was just looking for entertainment, and I did get it.
Looking for something entertaining, go see it. Looking for something more substantial, try something else.
RATING: Worth a Cheap Ticket, Worth a Rental (if there're DVD Extras)