Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Got to see Armpitt's latest self-promotion called Troy. The variance from Homer's Iliad has been illustrated through various critics revealing of how the actual "story" is supposed to be told. Ignoring that for a moment, the movie is still an epic mess. Like Lord of the Rings, the movie attempts to tell an epic tell in a matter of three hours. However, where Lord of the Rings at least had three movies to develop characters (which translates to 12 hours total if you count the extended versions). Everything felt extremely rushed once you got passed the first 10 minutes of the movie; the actors seemed to compete for time on screen. You really wanted to have each one show some development, but none had enough time. What was shown in the characters wasn't so bad. Brad Pitt, I guess, was chosen to play Achilles because they needed someone to play an angry, warmongering, jerk. Perfect person. Truthfully, the guy looked more like some basketball player trying to hit a slam dunk than some Greek mythological figure. That seemed to be the only part he really tried to nail (excuse the pun). The character that gave some credence to the story was Hector, played by Eric Bana. Apparently, they needed someone to play Aragorn against Orlando Bloom's Legolas in this movie. Eric Bana does a good job playing the conflicted, loyal soldier, but in some cases you kinda wish that it was Viggo Mortisen instead. Still, my personal wish was that they kept the fighting scenes a little shorter and the dialogue longer. The character Bana was attempting to play, I felt, should've been given a few more lines against Achilles in the sense that he would've tried reasoning with him more. Along with that you needed Sean Bean's Odysseus to have had a few intellectual talks with Hector as they seem to relate better. Well, at least this time Sean Bean didn't have to job. He does another credible job as one of the few characters in the story to have true wit and reason behind him. Of course, the story really should've been about his character rather than Brad Pitt, but at least Pitt didn't try to outshine everyone here. I think the biggest point I picked up in the movie was that it provide enough to get the feeling of a greek tragedy (which is what the story is about anyway). There's an abundance in miscommunication that leads to the various deaths in the story as well as the moral tale of man's greed (Agememnon). Unfortunately, the epic battle scenes attempt to distract you from the real essence of the story. Even then those battle scenes don't further what Hollywood has done in recent memory. It seems that this movie attempted to combat Lord of the Rings and the Matrix Revolutions in terms of scale, but the CG effects are merely a grindstone to the lack of character depth that is needed to drive the scenes. However, there are some very nice dialogue spots. I personally like Odysseus' quote, "War is young men dying and old men talking. Ignore the politics." This statement can be translated into so many situations in our (post-) modern world. For instance, how managers utilize underpaid grunts to get their project finished while they go off on vacation with a nice paycheck. Or just the Bush administration in how some shitfuck sends America's young blindly into battle for a war they know nothing about in terms of the real political ramifications (as opposed to the brainwashing effect of "unquestioning patriotism"). That alone demonstrates the timelessness of these Greek tragedies in how we apply them to our mostly unchanged society. Despite the rushedness and the mess, the plot points that do stick out, are poignant as exemplified by the previous quote. Another position was Hector's accusation of "Bird Science" against his father's priest ordaining of signs from Apollo that their nation would succeed. That demonstrates again blindfaith in an irrational decision that helped destroy Troy. The audience must observe as hapless captives while these fools make their decisions based on false assumptions. Or seeing how many of the characters in the story are "innocent" and not "truly bad" people. Yet based on subjectivity, lack of communication, and the side that one is on, they all misunderstand each other leading to the intertwined deaths of each other. I think from a basic understanding the movie has been able to convey this message quite clearly.