Film School

I just saw Troy, a film with so much of Brad Pitt's ass they gave it top billing.

Wolfgang Petersen's version of The Illiad is very good. His Achilles has the unabashed glory-hogging of a Major Movie Star, and so is played by the preeminent Major Movie Star of our times, who wisely chooses to keep the acting to a minimum and mug for the camera the way Paul Newman used to. Achilles' scenes usually begin with him in bed with a naked broad, only to be dragged out so he can not care about other people. Petersen also emphasizes his characters by giving most of them contrasting counter parts: Achilles' is Odysseus, the Common Man, honorable and quietly intelligent. These are the heroes.

There are also princes and kings. Greece's King Agamemnon is Brian Cox, chewing scenery with no regard for it's high carb count. He contrasts Troy's Priam, Peter O'Toole with the quiet dignity reserved only for true religious fanatics. Priam's religious faith is used as a justification for the Trojan's seeming massive stupidity: we can't see them accepting a tribute from the Greeks, but a man of faith would surely bring a tribute to Posiedon to the appropriate temple. Agamemnon's ambition is also a justification: wars don't start because a king's wife runs off with a foreign prince, but as an excuse for invading a country you dislike for other reasons, it's right up there with "nuclear weapon related programs."

Orlando Bloom is the prince with whom said wife runs off. He appears at first to be acting the part of an airhead who doesn't realize that his dalliances will bring his country to war. But later, when the script calls for Paris to realize what he's done, we begin to suspect that Orlando Bloom may in fact really be an airhead. (Or as Johnny Depp said the last time Orlando Bloom sucked up an otherwise excellent movie, which seems to be his thing, "if you were looking for the opportune moment, that was it.") He's certainly outclassed by O'Toole and even the aggressively competent Eric Bana as older Prince Hector.

Unfortunately, the editing is terrible. For example, Petersen filmed a tight, intense fight between Hector and Achilles at the city gates; then he insists on cutting away every five seconds to O'Toole and Bloom looking down from a tower above, the former with deep concern, the other with what appears to be an irritable bowel. When the music should be subtle, it is loud; when there should be silence, the music is very, very loud.

Minor points, really: the acting is fun, the battles are cool, and the movie is worth the price of admission.

Troy: Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, starring Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, and Brad Pitt's Ass.

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