Troy

Homer’s epic poems are an easy source to base a film around. Just like a Shakespearean revenge tragedy, or a John Grisham courtroom novel. The Coen Brothers have perhaps been the only to succeed, with their spin on Homer’s “The Odyssey�; O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Various filmmakers over time have attacked “The Iliad�, but have never had great success. In 2004, veteran director, Wolfgang Peterson (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm) and novice screenwriter David Benioff (25th Hour) have collaborated in an attempt to breathe life into Homer’s epic tale of the now archetypal Trojan War.

Trojans - gone to Helen back.

For those unfamiliar with the story of “The Iliad�, it’s quite simple. Boy (Paris, Orlando Bloom) likes Girl (Helen, Diane Kruger), who happens to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Boy steals girl from King (Menelaus, Brendan Gleeson). Not happy about the wife-snatching, King rallies entire Greek Army behind him to wage war on Troy, homeland of Boy. War wages, ankles are amputated, Trojan walls tremble.

Fortunately for us there are many more characters than Boy, Girl and King; and you may be surprised to hear that they aren’t really the most prominent characters within Troy. Brother to Boy, Hector (Eric Bana) is our traditional hero. Good looking, noble and brave. Achilles (Brad Pitt) is your standard renegade anti-hero. Again good looking, not so noble, but immeasurably brave. Not to mention, he has a vulnerable heel. Greek King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) is your standard villain. Greedy, ugly and irrational. The standard stereotypes associated with these types of characters are set in place within Troy. They never change, or develop into something innovative, but stay within the boundaries of what I’ve coined ‘safe-cinema’.

Unfortunately for its audience, Troy fails to deliver on almost every level. Peterson seems to have taken fantastic actors, given them terrible dialogue, dressed them in skirts and made them perform like the film-school dropout we’ve learnt to hate. I believe Peterson has grown despondent after producers of Days of Our Lives turned him down to direct their eighty-third season. After such rejection, he used Troy as an excuse to teach the Days of Our Lives team a lesson. Who said he can’t direct a fantastic soap? A bit of an oxymoron, to say the least!

"Honour the gods, love your woman and defend your country."

I am Gladiator!

Screenwriter David Benioff has seemed to butcher and bash Homer’s “The Iliad� until it no longer resembled an interesting, complex and sophisticated tale of love and war. He has seemed to have succumbed to the latest phase in Hollywood of adding an ‘honour’ and ‘remembrance’ motif behind the development of key characters. Achilles only goes to war so that people in 2000 years time will “remember his name�. Every ten minutes we’re reminded of what a fantastic warrior he is, and why he’ll be remembered in years to come. His actions are driven by his desire to secure his name within history. Apart from being revoltingly sentimental, this aspiration of “being remembered� is the most unrealistic foundation for a character in the history of cinema. Director Peterson commented on his decision to omit the deep mythological element inherit in “The Iliad� from the film, and that was “to create a more realistic film to cater for the audience of the 21st century�. Unfortunately he completely missed the lesson on ‘realism’ at German film school.

There isn’t much left to comment on after condemning Troy’s direction and screenplay to the depths of damnation itself, other than asking the inevitable ‘why does Troy deserve its six out of ten?’ A range of very well-filmed battle sequences that adequately compete with the likes of Gibson’s Braveheart and Scott’s Gladiator. A great performance from our own Eric Bana (despite all ‘direction’ from Peterson). A refreshing and relatively original score from James Horner. And finally the fantastic production detail behind character costumes, set design and digital effects.

Troy isn’t a complete mess, but is far from an acceptable adaptation of Homer’s classic poem. Given a competent director, and an original screenwriter, I’m confident that this could have been very, very good. Perhaps in 30 years time, when its time for a remake, we’ll see Gibson reprise his role as an epic-director and tackle “The Illiad� with all he’s got!

Clash of the Titans.

Warner have done a fantastic job with the video transfer on their release of Troy, which has subsequently made it very hard to criticise. Colours are consistent and balanced (considering the films low range in colour – essentially from yellow to brown). Black levels are solid throughout the film. Aliasing and all other forms of poor digital compression never appeared.

There was a slight grain behind many scenes, however this is not a fault of the transfer, and it was never distracting. I can imagine the post-production team added a little grain for ‘added authenticity’.

There’s not much else to comment on! I can’t imagine anyone will be disappointed with this transfer. Definitely stands as a reference-quality disc, especially for those with a large monitor/projector.

This Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is very good, and perfectly suited the wide variety of different scenes within Troy. Immense battle scenes were brought to life through the sweeping sound effects, making full use of all six channels. Arrows whizzing through the rears, screams bursting through the front channels and the dull thud of human impact felt through the sub combine for a very intense experience indeed!

First prize at the Melbourne Cup.

James Horner’s score is very well delivered, in amazing clarity. It will often break through the left and right speakers in times of dramatic tension, or through the rears in an epic-battle scene.

My only issue was with the volume of the dialogue (which seems to be a common problem among DVDs of 2004). During battle scenes, or even scenes with a large number of characters, voices often seem buried beneath the score or sound effects. While this wasn’t a consistent problem, it did surface itself a number of times and was quite distracting.

Upon closer inspection I found the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack on the Troy DVD to be encoded at a significantly lower bitrate of 384kb/s (in contrast to the regular 448kb/s). The reason to compress the audio this far is beyond my comprehension, as there’s ample space on the disc. I did not notice a loss in detail or fidelity due to this lower bitrate (in compared to full-rate soundtracks), which essentially means those without a super-sonic sonar radar won’t notice the difference (note the Batfink reference!).

Overall it’s a very impressive soundtrack. Hopefully a dts mix will be done for the inevitable re-release, with better balanced dialogue.

Brother, you're making me very angry.

Warner’s release of Troy comes with an extra disc, presumably filled with special features to delight and Trojan fan. However, this disc is very, very bare. Upon investigation I’ve found that all these extra features could have easily fitted on disc one, alongside the feature.

Featurette: In the Thick of Battle (17:14) – A very interesting look behind the wide range of visual effects used in Troy. Various production and stunt coordinators explain how they managed to bring this massive war to life. Over 800 extras were used in a single shot. Amazing!

Featurette: From Ruins to Reality (14:05) – Another production-based featurette, looking at the many sets created to replicate an authentic ancient world. It’s interesting to hear how much historical research was disregarded by production teams when bringing the world of Troy to life.

Featurette: Troy: An Effects Odyssey (10:58) – The digital-effects used in Troy are remarkably similar to those used in the Lord of Rings films. This small featurette takes us through how the digital team created armies of epic proportion.

All featurettes are presented in letterboxed widescreen (4:3) and have optional subtitles.

Gallery of the Gods - Considering how the role of the gods was heavily dampened in the film, this extra seems a little strange. The background behind 12 of Greek’s ancient gods is presented in detail.

A theatrical trailer for Troy in 16x9 enhanced widescreen is the final addition to this very bare second disc of extra features.

Sunset Boulevard.

Wolfgang Peterson’s soap-operatic direction combined with Benioff’s tiresome screenplay make this film one to be avoided. Past films issued with lower ratings have been redeemed through the means of a handful of entertaining actors (or just one in the case of The Chronicles of Riddick). Unfortunately Troy doesn’t have anything to fall back on.

For fans of the film, you’re now blessed with an amazing DVD. The reference-quality audio and video will make this a worthwhile addition to your DVD library. Those who can ‘see the light’ (cinematically speaking) won’t remember this release for long.

After an epic? Avoid Troy and give Braveheart another run. The moderately entertaining The Last Samurari may even fill your epic-sized void. Those few who just love a good Greek will have to wait until Stone’s Alexander is released.