Troy: Director's Cut

Troy: Director's Cut

As a child, my mind was lost in myths, legends and history. I spent hours devouring the stories of Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and the Trojan War, my imagination completely captured. Unfortunately, in 2004, Hollywood managed to take all three of my childhood dreams and send them crashing back down to Earth. (I speak of Alexander, King Arthur, and Troy). Of the three, Troy was probably the best. When it worked, it truly did work. There are moments that really are grand epic fun. But when it was bad...oh, boy, was it bad. The worst part was that it just seemed sloppy. Strange shots, bad editing, and questionable plot decisions ruined what could have been a solid film.

But has the new Troy: Director's Cut solved these problems? Yes and no. Make no mistake - this is not Kingdom of Heaven, where the director's cut turned the film from an interesting failure to one of the best films of the year. The major problems with Troy remain. Some of the acting is goofy, characterizations are often lazy and one-dimensional, and all the major plotting problems are still there.

But make no mistake, those problems are not as noticeable because the film has gone through quite an upgrade. This film is longer than the theatrical version, but it actually feels shorter! That is because of subtle changes that director Wolfgang Peterson made, shifting the pacing of the film, fixing any sloppiness and providing a full color adjustment that makes the film much more vibrant and beautiful to look at. The theatrical cut dragged in a lot of places and its problems were glaring. The Director's Cut moves along so smoothly that the problems don't bother me quite so much. The added scenes add some necessary and welcome character development, especially for Sean Bean's wonderful Odysseus.

In almost every way, the Director's Cut is better. My one complaint is about the music, which most people won't notice. But since I love film scores, I have to complain! The score for Troy was a last minute replacement by James Horner (Braveheart) and he wrote, recorded and mixed the entire score in 13 days. Which is pretty impressive, even if the score isn't great. But it at least got the job done efficiently. But Peterson has stripped Horner's score almost entirely from the film. The one piece he did like, he re-uses about seventeen thousand times. Then he sprinkles in music from other movies like Planet of the Apes and Starship Troopers. The rest of the music, playing wall-to-wall during dialogue scenes that don't even need music sound like a chimp farting out notes on a Yamaha synthesizer. It is TERRIBLE! And horribly distracting to me. But hey, I admit it, I might be psycho about this kind of thing. So take this with a grain of salt...

Other than that, the Director's Cut is a definite improvement over the theatrical version. If you liked the movie before, you will probably love it now. If you thought it was okay, you might like it just a little bit more. But if you hated it, this version won't do anything to change your mind. To me, it is an improved, but still not great movie. It still doesn't live up to my childhood dreams, but at least it isn't destroying them. So that's my sum-up.

P.S. I have also written a review of James Horner's score to Troy. Check it out by going to SoundtrackDB!

MVP: Gotta give it to Sean Bean. I just really enjoyed the heck out of his performance as Odysseus. And he succeeds in giving life to this iconic character with not a lot to work with. I actually want them to make a sequel because I would love to see Sean Bean in The Odyssey, tackling sirens and sea monsters!

TRIVIA: Brad Pitt (who played Achilles) injured himself during the production of the film. Ironically, he injured his achilles tendon.

BEST LINE: (minor spoiler?) Priam: I loved my boy from the moment he opened his eyes until the moment you closed them."  On paper, this doesn't sound like much of a line, but you need to see its moving delivery!

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Best Costume Design