More Musings on Troy

More Musings on Troy

First off - spoiler alert!

So there are a few other items I wanted to discuss from Wolfgang Peterson's Troy from 2004. As I wrote my review earlier, the movie was a disappointment overall. When it worked, it was quite good. Unfortunately, there were just as many moments that did not work, and many of them are major problems.

There have been many criticisms leveled against Troy, some deserved and some not. I would like to defend the movie against some of these unfair criticisms.

1) The Gods are the most important part of The Iliad. Where the heck are the Gods in this movie?

The first misconception is that Troy is even an adaptation of Homer's The Iliad. It isn't. You could never make a movie of The Iliad because it only tells a tiny fraction of the Trojan War, a period of just a few weeks during the vast 10-year long conflict. The war doesn't begin in the Iliad. Troy doesn't fall in the Iliad. There is no Trojan Horse in the Iliad. Achilles is not famously killed with the arrow in the heel in the Iliad. The Iliad is ONLY the story of the events that directly lead to the epic Hector vs. Achilles duel. That's it. So let me clear that up right away.

People argue that without the gods, the whole story of the Trojan War is meaningless. To which I have to ask - why? The gods are important to the myth of the Trojan War, but that is not the story that Troy is trying to tell. Troy is trying to tell a plausible story that over thousands of years could have become the myth. I do agree that the involvement of the gods is important to the myth itself and does provide some wonderful thought-provoking themes about the nature of free will and what it means to be a human being. All very interesting material, but hardly necessary. What is essential to this tale is love - Achilles and Patrocles, Hector and Andromache, and especially that of Helen and Paris, who choose love over politics and bring about the destruction of a civilization because of it. Pride is also an essential theme. Hubris, the blind and haughty pride that has brought down many a hero and villain is on full display in both the myth and the movie. It is Agamemnon's hubris that insults and isolates Achilles so he refuses to fight, it is Troy's hubris that they can never lose a battle that leads to their downfall. That is much more important to the core story.

So why are the gods needed? Someday someone will adapt the myth into a film, and realize its impossible because the scenes in Olympus don't work in a film medium. It would be an hour of debating free will. Interesting to read. Boring to watch. I'd rather watch the war itself, thank you very much.

2) The acting stinks!

Overall, I have to disagree again. Critics singled out Eric Bana, Peter O'Toole, and Sean Bean as giving good performances, but every one else was a target. There are some weaker performances in the movie, I will admit that (for example, Saffron Burrows, whose acting in this movie consists of various combinations of weeping and shaking). But I want to defend the rest of the cast. Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox are overacting as villainous brothers Menelaus and Agamemnon, but who cares? These are larger than life characters and they need to be played large. Personally, I enjoyed watching the two of them trying to chew apart every scene they were in. Orlando Bloom caught a lot of heat for a moony, whiny and annoying performance, but wait a minute - is that fair? Paris is moony, whiny and annoying. The fact that you hate Paris in this movie just means Orlando Bloom was doing his job effectively. And how about Brad Pitt as Achilles? Critics called his performance the epitome of Hollywood pretty boy miscasting. But I actually think that is what you need in this role. Achilles doesn't need to be a good actor; he needs old school Hollywood charisma. I don't care if he's one dimensional. I just want him to be charismatic chiseled weapon of destruction. Brad Pitt brings that to the movie. If his dialogue delivery is a little flat in a few scenes, he looks and moves every inch like Achilles. And in every scene with Brad Pitt, your eyes are naturally drawn to him. That is what you need in Achilles. He is the greatest warrior in all of literature.

I've been hearing these two criticisms unfairly leveled against Troy for years, so I just wanted to speak up in the film's defense. But I don't want to defend the film too much as it has some very big problems. Like below:

1) There is only so much you should change the legend!

If you are adapting an old tale, re-envisioning or updating it, there are certain things that can and cannot be changed. If you want to kill certain characters who are supposed to live, or visa versa, that's okay. I'm not a stickler for the details. But Troy goes too far. The city of Troy falls. Paris dies. Helen goes back to Greece. That's the whole point. The story of Paris and Helen cannot end well  They are responsible for the destruction of their city and the deaths of thousands of their people. They simply can not live happily ever after. So when Paris and Helen escape to the mountains, are we supposed to be happy for them while the city is burned and pillaged? What the hell?

The confusing thing is that they even set up Paris' death nicely. Before running into the city to save his cousin, Paris hands a young boy named Aeneas the Sword of Troy, saying so long as a Trojan holds this sword, her people will have a future. Since in the legend, Aeneas went on to lead the Trojan survivors to Italy and that his descendants founded Rome, I thought this was a cool little bit. But when Paris survives and escapes with everyone else, I had to wonder what was the point of the whole Aeneas scene? Now its just random and pointless.

2) Helen

She is partially responsible for starting the war, after all. But after the first half of the film, where all she does is mope, she largely vanishes. Nobody liked Helen in this movie, and a lot of people blamed Diane Kruger's acting. I think she is just badly written and not given anything to do. Playing the most beautiful woman in history is an impossible task in of itself. But add that to filmmakers who don't really know what to do with you after the opening act...poor Kruger was being set up as a target from the very beginning! What a wasted opportunity to play up the guilt, the horror that this conflict is her fault. They could and should have done something with that. They only hint at it once, in a beautifully done moment before Hector goes off to fight Achilles. Helen waits for him by the gate, weeping, because she knows that the best man in the city was about to be killed protecting her. It's a good moment, and the movie needed more of that.

3) Death of Patroclus

This is such a stupid moment! When Hector kills Patroclus, both armies stop fighting (as if all 10,000 men could have known this duel was happening) and get all depressed because the young man was killed. "That's enough killing for one day" and they all go home. What?? First of all, Patroclus isn't that young and was certainly not any younger than half the other people getting slaughtered in the movie. We didn't stop fighting for any of those guys. I think the writers just didn't know how to end the scene. They wrote themselves into a corner and had to think of a way to end the fight before the Trojans won the battle. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but this scene is STUPID!

4) Patroclus and Achilles

Speaking of Patroclus, I think they missed a big opportunity. Patroclus was Achilles' friend, not his cousin. There is even some subtext that he is Achilles' lover. I think the studios got afraid because they didn't want their sexy leading man to be gay. What safer way to do that than turn his best friend/lover into his cousin? But how much more interesting would the scenes in Achilles' camp have been if they had kept that part of the story intact? What an interesting love triangle. Achilles falls in love with the Trojan priestess, Briseis, and rejects the war and prepares to return home. In doing this, he is not just rejecting his old life as a warrior but is rejecting the loved one who represents that life: Patroclus. In the movie, Patroclus is just some whiny kid who is bummed out because he never gets to fight. Wouldn't it be better if he sees Briseis as what she is, as a rival and a threat? Suddenly, Patroclus being killed by Hector takes on more meaning. It ignites Achilles, who unleashes his vengeance on the battlefield. Such fury makes more sense if it is the love of your life who has just been killed. I'm not saying that the filmmakers needed to go Brokeback Mountain in ancient Greece. If the studios were worried, they could have kept this subtle. But I think this decision to make Patroclus a cousin just smacks of marketing fears. Pity. I think they missed an opportunity for good drama!

Okay, my ramblings are over. Thanks for indulging! New review next time - the terrific Chinese film, Ip Man!

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

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds

I have to admit, I was kind of put off when I first heard about Inglourious Basterds. I was not a big fan of Tarantino's Kill Bill movies and never really had an urge to watch Death Proof. And then I saw how he mispelled the words in the title to be mysterious and cool, and I just found that annoying. Then I started hearing rumors of some graphic scalping scenes and I just really didn't want to deal with that. So I wrote it off.

I'm glad I changed my mind and eventually sat down and watched it. Because despite the fact that I still think some of the gore is unnecessary and the mispelling of the title is still lame, Inglourious Basterds is easily Tarantino's best film since Pulp Fiction.

The plot is pretty complicated, with a lot of different chess pieces slowly inching towards each other - there is Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his Inglourious Basterds - Jewish-American soldiers who are fighting a guerilla war in France and striking fear into the hearts of Nazis everywhere. There is Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a SS detective and security officer who hunts down Jews trying to escape from Nazi-occupied France. Which leads us to Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a young Jewish women whose parents were killed by Landa earlier in the war. Now she owns a movie theater in Paris and is being wooed by a bothersome German war hero (Daniel Bruhl). But then there is also British officer Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) who is working with double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) to bring down some high ranking members of the Third Reich. All the characters have their separate stories, boldly interweaving and jumping around without a care in the world. I don't want to spoil how the stories weave together - for me, watching how everything connects was half the fun.

In many ways, Inglourious Basterds is a big breakthrough for Tarantino. He launches into a true period piece and despite its fantastical and unrealistic characters and plot developments, he has created a World War II setting that is entirely believable and real. Everything feels, looks, and mostly sounds right. It helps that he lets everyone speak in their proper language (the Germans speak German, the French speak French, and so on). Having military buff and filmmaker John Milius (director of Conan the Barbarian and writer of Apocalypse Now) as a consultant certainly helped, as well. Either way, this is an impressive feat of filmmaking and writing.

The acting is also top notch. Christoph Waltz as the main villain is superb - his line readings alternating between smooth, charming, menacing, and then suddenly outright bizarre (check out how he giggles, "Biiinnngggooo!!!"). It is a great performance. But I expected that - everyone talked about how amazing he was, and he lived up to those expectations. What I was not expecting was how much I loved A) Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine, the tough and witty leader of the Basterds. His Tennessee accent is over-the-top without being a parody and he gets many of the best lines; B) Michael Fassbender, who made Zero impression on me in 300, is excellent as Archie Hicox. And I think I may have been watching the actor who eventually replaces Daniel Craig as James Bond in another five years or so. Fassbender is so much like a young Connery. Watch the scene where he is briefed by Winston Churchill and tell me it doesn't remind you of Thunderball or From Russia With Love. And watch his grace under pressure in the tavern scene and tell me you don't think he'd be a good Bond. Count me a fan; and C) Diane Kruger as German actress/double agent. I have never been a fan of Kruger thanks to forgettable performances in Troy and National Treasure, but here she shows true depth and a remarkable range. To be honest, at the end of the movie, I was most concerned about whether her character would live or die, and it mostly due to Kruger's work.

If I have any complaints about the film, and I have a few, it has to do with the length. He could have trimmed a good 20-minutes out. That said, I don't really know what he could cut out. He creates a number of set pieces - only instead of action set pieces, they are drawn out conversations between adversaries, dripping with suspense and double meanings. They are all fabulously written and acted and take their time to develop. I wouldn't want to cut any of them. The problem is that after five or six of these scenes, your butt just begins to fall asleep. There's really no way around that. But what would I take out? Hell if I know...I would also like to complain again about the gore - not that the bad guys don't deserve it, but that doesn't mean I need to watch all the scalping and carving and baseball bat beating. Another minor complaint - the use of David Bowie's song from Cat People is completely inappropriate -it plays while Shosanna is dressing to attend a big Nazi party. It's supposed to make her badass. Instead it makes it seem like she's attending a politically incorrect costume party in the 1980s.

MVP: Well, the MVP has to be Tarantino. For the first time in a long time, he actually reigns in his excesses and uses them in service of the movie - this includes his monologues. All too often his speeches are in his own voice, as if Tarantino is commenting on the scene in the film. While certainly well written and interesting, they are often completely out of character and throw me out of the movie - yeah, I'm looking at you Kill Bill 2 and your lame Superman speech that totally ruins the climax of the film! Yet here, the extensive dialogue and speeches are all in character, all of them service the film perfectly and do not slow the momentum down at all; on the contrary, they only ratchets up the suspense. Tarantino mentioned he wanted to make a Medieval film some day soon. At first, I was really not happy about that. But now that I've seen what he is capable of doing with a true period piece, count me in. Just keep David Bowie off the soundtrack.

TRIVIA: Tarantino almost cast two funny men in roles that I would have never have imagined - Adam Sandler almost played Basterd Donny Donowitz, the hulking warrior who likes to beat Nazi heads in with his baseball bat. And Simon Pegg (Shawn of the Dead) almost played Archie Hicox. Both would have been interesting choices, if strange. Luckily, both had scheduling conflicts (Sandler was working on Funny People and I'm not sure what Pegg was working on - probably Star Trek). All's well that ends well, I suppose. I like Eli Roth as Donowitz and have already discussed Fassbender above.

BEST LINE: You know as embarrassing as this is - with all the wealth of good dialogue in this movie, what I remember most is the way Brad Pitt says "Arrivederci." I completely lost it. It's the funniest sequence in the film...

OSCARS: Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz)

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Best Picture, Director (Tarantino), Original Screenplay (Tarantino), Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography,