We went to Troy last Saturday night in Carroll. We left Anna with my folks for a few hours and even though we'd heard bad reviews for the movie, we went thinking that surely it couldn't be that bad. And it wasn't. But it was what it wasn't that made me so frustrated with it. Yeah, the thousand ships CGI shot was cool and it was sort of pseudo-Gladiator in a lot of respects. But there were so many things wrong with the movie.
The biggest problem was the casting of Brad Pitt as Achilles. His character was so damn annoying that I almost applauded when he died (sorry if that's a spoiler--but doesn't everyone know that?) He was more like a California surfer dude rather than an ancient mythic Greek hero. Also, the CG was pretty shoddy, perhaps moreso because it comes so quickly after The Lord of the Rings. Even the Trojan Horse was a little bit of a let down, but at least it made structural sense. The only real building materials they would have had would have been the wood from the boats, so it couldn't hope to look like a lot of the popular art depicting the Trojan Horse. (like this or this.)
There's a picture of the Trojan Horse from the movie on the movie's web site if you want to compare (I can't manage to link directly to it.)
Man, I hope the summer movie season gets better! And quick!
1 comment:
Hmmm. Going to see this tonight with some friends in St. Louis. I'm almost as excited to be checking out a new movie theatre as I am to see the movie. The friends (including a historian teaching Ancient History) liked it so much that they are seeing it again -- "I'm going to buy it anyway" -- so here's hoping for the best.
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