2 of 4

Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom

All these changes would not be so bad if the film had breathed some life into its characters, but the actors do little more than fill the gaps between battle scenes with rote dialogue about glory, honor, seeking the will of the gods, the fact that there is nothing glorious about seeing men die, and so on. Pitt famously worked out for the role, but he still somehow lacks the presence that a formidable character like Achilles requires. Eric Bana (Hulk) is more successful as Hector, the tragic Trojan prince who wants nothing more than to protect his family, but goes to war because that is his duty and his talent. Peter O'Toole, as the Trojan king Priam, is restrained to some degree by his regal bearing, but he, too, expresses a love for his family that turns especially poignant in one of the film's final scenes.

Hanging over everything is the film's deeply ambivalent inquiry into the nature of religious faith. The nobler characters often talk about honoring the gods, but how does one do that when the gods themselves, according to Greek myth, don't even honor one another? Achilles, the one person who actually claims to have seen the gods, also commits some of the most sacrilegious acts in the film. Neither honoring nor dishonoring the gods makes any difference to his fate, in the end, because in his world, all mortal humans will end up in Hades.

These guys don't horse around!

It is difficult to tell whether Troy feels like a hollow exercise in epic filmmaking because its characters lack any sense of their own purpose, or because Petersen's direction is so pedestrian and derivative of earlier films. Indeed, Troy fails to offer anything that might compare to the operatic heights of Peter Jackson's recent Lord of the Rings trilogy. This comparison might seem unfair, but is inevitable when the film features so many digitally generated aerial clashing-army shots, and when two of the film's co-stars are former members of the Fellowship. These impressions are deepened by James Horner's unimaginative score, which shamelessly apes the exotic vocalizations of Gladiator whenever it strives to sound mournful and sounds like the perfunctory rush job that it was. Homer's poem begins with a call for the Muse to sing of Achilles's rage, but Troy, the film, does not sing the way a movie should.

Talk About It

1. Is glory a good thing? Can anyone apart from God ever receive it? If so, how? How should we regard "heroes" of the faith, from biblical times to the early church to today?
   
   
2. Is immortality something to be grasped, or pursued? How do we perceive immortality, as Christians? What does it mean that Christ has conquered death? If death were not conquered, then how should we regard this life?
   
   
3. How do we discern the will of God? What role should "signs" or "omens" play? How do we distinguish between those decisions we are free to make for ourselves, on our own instincts, and those decisions for which we might need a little more divine input?
   
   

A ready-to-download, Bible-based discussion guide is available for this movie at ChristianBibleStudies.com. Use this guide after the movie to help you and your small group better connect your faith to pop culture.

The Family Corner

Troy is full of stabbings, impalings, and other battlefield wounds, though it does not linger on them so much as acknowledge what happens in warfare. The film also features several scenes of Achilles in the nude, sometimes with his various lovers—the first time we see him, he is in bed with two women—plus it depicts the adulterous affair between Paris and Helen, though not in a graphic way.

Photo © Copyright Warner Bros.

In Troy, thousands of soldiers put their lives on the line so an angry king can bring his brother's adulterous wife Helen (Diane Kruger) back home from the city of Troy where she's hiding with Paris (Orlando Bloom), her lover.

next page... |  2 of 4