Troy

Mention Homer to most filmgoers these days and they’ll probably think of Bart Simpson’s dad. But since the success of films like The Lord of the Rings, brawny, mythic adventures have become a studio staple. So, I suppose Troy was inevitable. The Iliad, Homer’s epic poem upon which the movie is based, was the foundation stone of Western literature and the first great war drama. Along with The Odyssey, it had the same cultural prominence in ancient Greece as the Bible has today.

Read with reverence, it was used to teach literacy, history, religion and culture. And while Wolfgang Petersen’s movie will hardly make the same lasting impression, the picture is, by Hollywood standards, a loyal rendering of the legendary tale. It’s also pretty good fun. Like a soap opera produced by the Pentagon, it’s an out-sized melodrama of love and war.

The film takes a few liberties with the original saga, but they’re forgivable. Like most English translations of the poem, the movie is often staid and the battles repetitive. A lot of the dialogue is blustery talk of a soldier’s duty, the glories of war and all that macho stuff. But then this is where heroic literature was invented. Homer didn’t have the benefit of Freud – internal conflicts and complex psychologies are absent here. Motivations are big and brutish. The story is so testosterone drenched even condom makers borrowed from it. So a film true to the spirit of Homer’s account would naturally bear these flaws.

Still, it’s cool to watch.

The year is roughly 1200 BC. A rising Greek empire is spreading its influence across the eastern Mediterranean led by the arrogant King Agamemnon (Brian Cox). His brother, King Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson) has an unhappy wife, Helen (Diane Kruger) , who’s in love with the visiting Prince Paris (Orlando Bloom). When the smitten young prince lures her back to his home city of Troy, it’s war. The various Greek tribes assemble an armada of a thousand ships and sail to the shores of Asia Minor to sack the fortress city and reclaim their queen.

Agamemnon’s secret weapon against the Trojans is Prince Achilles, played by an awesomely buffed-out Brad Pitt. The son of a goddess, and the greatest warrior alive, Achilles has contempt for his king, who fights for greed rather than glory. Hence, once the Greek fleet hits the beach to lay siege to Troy (shot on the coast of Malta), Achilles’ heart isn’t in it. To make matters worse, no sooner does the warrior prince take a liking to a captured Trojan maiden named Briseis (Rose Byrne) than Agamemnon grabs her for himself. So, Achilles backs out of the battle and spends much of his time brooding on the sidelines while his brothers-in-arms vainly attack the city.

Pitt seems born to play the pouting Greek superhero. The man is gorgeous; a factor that should entice female viewers to suffer through the blood and butchery their boyfriends came to see. His Achilles is both an unrepentant killer and a long-suffering loner. A warrior savant with a teenage moodiness. He mows down entire platoons without breaking a sweat, but wants to grab his ball and go home when he can’t get his way. Especially fun is how director Petersen choreographs Pitt’s fight scenes. Leaping like a figure from an ancient urn, he jousts with balletic grace. His superhuman moves are as deft and otherworldly as the swordplay in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Providing a Trojan counterpart to Pitt’s Greek hero is Eric Bana as Prince Hector. Brother of Paris and son of King Priam (Peter O’Toole), Hector leads his men to fend off the invaders. Bana’s features look like something from a marble bust, and his reluctant warrior role makes him more introspective and sympathetic than Achilles. In fact, the whole film sides more or less with Troy. While the Greeks don’t come off entirely as villains, our modern distaste for empire-building and romanticizing warfare do make us identify with the besieged Trojans.

To be fair, both sides attempt to settle the dispute without a full-scale war. They try a one-on-one sword fight between the tough old Menelaus and Prince Paris, the waifish lover who made off with the king’s wife. But this idea fails. Tragically, no one suggests giving up Helen and bitch-slapping Paris for being so stupid. So, like a thoughtless kid who picks a fight he can’t win, Paris gets his big brother and the whole Trojan family sucked into the fray.

What may surprise many is the peripheral role Helen plays in the drama. She’s the desirable McGuffin rather than a character who drives the plot. As a Greek baring her gifts, Diane Kruger is a hottie. But she’s little else. She’s not the man-eating sex siren pop culture imagines Helen to be. I always thought of her more as a conniving Cleopatra type than a lovelorn Bo Derek look-alike. But that’s her role in the original story. Her affair with the weak-kneed Paris is a Bronze Age precursor to Romeo and Juliet; love-struck youths whose elopement sets two tribes at odds – only here they involve 50,000 men in a war that destroys a civilization. Shakespearean isn’t the word.

Director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One) wisely excludes most of the Greek gods from the drama, except for Thetis (Julie Christie), mother of Achilles. The mortal story is more than enough. Inevitably, he does include the famous Trojan Horse stunt, even though it’s a legend added centuries after The Iliad was first written.

Amid the film’s pantheon of hunks is Peter O’Toole as the beleaguered King Priam of Troy. O’Toole displays a regal bearing that age cannot wither. His character is far nobler and more forgiving than his Greek counterpart, Brian Cox’s amusingly smarty-pants Agamemnon. Priam’s eventual meeting with Achilles is the most moving scene in the film and O’Toole’s performance marks a suitable coda to a distinguished career.

Overall, the picture is an old-fashioned C.B. De Mille epic, both in its scope and its conservative style. The plotting is Cliffs Notes efficient, hitting the key beats of Homer’s account. It falls short of working as a metaphor for the folly of all conflict the way The Iliad does, but maybe that’s demanding a masterpiece; something that rarely happens upon request. Even the massive budget, which was almost certainly more than the cost of the actual Trojan War, can’t guarantee that.

What might have been avoided is the characters’ self-awareness that they’re part of a classic yarn. They remain stoically stranded on pedestals, without enough human moments to fully resonate. Writer David Benioff (The 25th Hour) does well enough putting words into the mouths of archaic heroes. But the smaller moments feel wooden, and most of the pre-battle pep talks are generic. The script could use a touch of Henry V, or employ some of the chest-thumping barnburners of The Iliad itself.

Nevertheless, Petersen and company have pulled off a tough task. The leather clad warriors don’t come off as laughable or hambone, and the overall production is impressive, if not entirely original. It borrows generously (and wisely) from Lord of the Rings on several counts, which include swooping shots over Tsunamis of swordsmen – and much of the cast.

Orlando Bloom as Paris must be sick to death by now of shooting arrows after playing an elfin archer in three Rings epics and now this. Likewise, Sean Bean as a convincing Odysseus may have had his fill of swordplay after two previous films as Tolkein’s Prince Boromir and something like twelve outings as Richard Sharpe. On the other hand, you may not have seen the last of him wielding a bronze blade. Hollywood owes a lot to Homer, including the heroic storytelling style and the concept of the sequel. Someone should check Sean Bean’s contract to see if the word "Odyssey" shows up.