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Saturday, May 15, 2004 |
Troy. Warning: spoilers
Troy is an entertaining but deeply flawed movie. First, no way should
Achilles survive to see the fall of Troy and kill Agamemnon! This is
like having Juliet wake up in time to save Romeo from drinking the
poison. Second, nowhere that I saw did they indicate that this battle
last 10 years! There's no Cassandra or Iphigenia, let alone any of the
Greek gods directly in the movie. Finally, as my sister-in-law
says, Brad Pitt is just too nice to be Achilles. And, one more, no way
is Patroclos Achilles' cousin! That's just the tip of the iceberg for the liberties taken with these stories.
But there was a lot the movie got right, and worked. Agamemnon stole
the movie for me, except for his disastrous (for the movie) ending,
they got his character just right. Same with Paris, Priam, Hector, Paris, and
a lot of the visuals. The battle scenes are fun and exciting, though
they don't compare to those in the Lord of the Rings movies or Saving
Private Ryan (I did see one ludicrous review that compared them
favorably to that movie). Sometimes the CGI is a bit obvious, but
in general the spectacle was there (though, again, it doesn't compare
favorably to the Lord of the Rings movies). And if he doesn't carry the
wrath of Achilles as well as he migh, Pitt is an attractive,
charismatic actor who is fun to watch.
So, thumbs up. Slightly bad Homer is better than no Homer at all, and
is still way better than lots of the adventure movies you see. This
stuff is the cornerstone of western literature and culture, and it's
fun to come back to it even if it's watered down. (Though I do prefer
that TV miniseries that was on a year or so ago.)
8:30:33 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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