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Troy Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: R (for graphic violence and some sexuality/nudity) Theater release: May 14, 2004 by Warner Bros. Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen Runtime: 2 hours 12 minutes Cast: Brad Pitt (Achilles), Orlando Bloom (Paris), Eric Bana (Hector), Diane Kruger (Helen), Peter O'Toole (Priam) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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Gladiator gave us a nasty, brutish vision of the world, but it compensated somewhat with a soothing and vaguely pagan belief in the afterlife. The Passion of The Christ gave us the suffering and execution of the Jewish Messiah, but it concluded with a brief glimpse of the resurrection by which he conquered death. Now comes Troy, the biggest Greco-Roman epic of them all—so far—and its theology is of a more agnostic sort.

Ironically enough, the warriors of this film spend a lot of time killing each other partly because they see no hope for a meaningful life beyond this world; for them, the gods and goddesses are mostly rumors at best, their wills impossible to discern, and the afterlife is a vague, shadowy realm that provides no comfort. For these men, the best kind of immortality they can hope for is to have their names live on the lips of their fellow men for ages to come—and the surest way to ensure their fame seems to be to kill as many people in battle as possible.

Brad Pitt as Achilles

Troy, then, is about the quest for personal glory in a heartless and indifferent world, and the unfortunate thing about Wolfgang Petersen's mega-budgeted, star-studded film is that it, too, lacks heart and comes across like a hollow quest for Hollywood glory. Early on in the film, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), king of all Greece, reluctantly concedes that if he is going to embark on the most ambitious military invasion of all time, he will need Achilles (Brad Pitt), the greatest but also one of the most uncontrollable warriors who has ever lived, on his side. So he sends the smooth-talking Odysseus (Sean Bean) to lure Achilles with the promise that this war will be his greatest opportunity to boost his own fame—and it is not too hard to imagine similar deal-making discussions taking place behind the scenes between moguls, agents, and actors. But while warriors might get away with a blunt display of force, resources, and technical skill, filmmakers must stir the heart and soul. While Troy boasts a stalwart cast and is fairly impressive on a technical level, it falters on nearly every level that might be called artistic or creative.

Paris (Orlando Bloom) and Helen, Queen of Sparta (Diane Kruger)

Let's start with the screenplay and give writer David Benioff (25th Hour) his due for trying to be relatively faithful to Homer's epic poem The Iliad, which, despite being essentially the first great work of Western literature, has never fared all that well on the big or small screen. Earlier movies about the Trojan War have borrowed a few elements from Homer, but have tended to focus more on the doomed romance between the Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) and the Spartan queen Helen (Diane Kruger), whose politically disastrous affair gives Helen's brother-in-law Agamemnon the excuse he needs to launch his war. Troy, however, puts the emphasis back where it belongs—on the pouting, sulking, hot-tempered and seemingly indestructible warrior Achilles. His seething rage at the start of the poem, and his tearful recognition of his own mortality at the end of it, provide the arc that holds The Iliad together.

Still, despite Benioff's fidelity to the material—fans of ancient myth may especially enjoy the brief cameo appearances by characters like Aeneas and Anchises—he also heavily demythologizes the story and makes some major changes to its basic narrative contours. (Suffice to say that at least one major character who is still alive in Homer's sequel, The Odyssey, bites the dust here.) The gods, who wade into the thick of battle in The Iliad, are virtually absent from this film. A scene of Achilles's mother Thetis (Julie Christie) predicting his death if he goes to Troy is the closest we get to any hint that the gods may be active in this world, and even this scene is open to interpretation. Achilles himself has been softened into a more romantic and sympathetic character; the Trojan slave girl he claimed as his property in the myth, he now treats more or less like a genuine lover. (The fact that she was committed to celibacy in the service of Apollo before Achilles's men captured her—in effect, Achilles is sleeping with a nun—is quickly glossed over.)

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