Troy (2004): A Review

Agamemnon (Brian Cox) is hell bent on conquering all of Greece. As an attempt to save lives, mostly to boast about Achilles' (Brad Pitt) fighting ability, the king's call their top warriors to battle and fight each other instead of their entire armies. Achilles despises Agamemnon but he fights, and wins, in order to save lives. Troy and Sparta have finally found peace after years of bloody conflict. King Priam (Peter O'Toole) sends his sons Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom) to help cement a foundation between the two countries. While in Sparta, Paris finds love in the arms of Helen (Diane Kruger), Menelaus' (Brendan Gleeson) wife. The two decide to flee to Troy the following day angering Menelaus. Menelaus calls on his brother Agamemnon for aid and a merciless war begins.

As a huge fan of Greek mythology, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of this film. Most films based on these concepts make the fatal flaw of only showing the gods as extreme powers. I was very happy to see that they mostly glossed over the gods and focused entirely on the warriors themselves. With a cast of extremely competent actors, most of whom I named above, this film was destined for glory. Brad Pitt made a very believable Achilles and Orlando Bloom was even likable as the love-sick Paris. I was very afraid that with Pitt playing this major role that they would glorify Achilles and change the story. The filmmakers surprised me and stayed relatively true to this classic fable. As an epic war movie, there is a lot of blood and violence. All of which was very tastefully done, by that I mean no excessive blood and guts. The story is an old one and anyone that chooses to pick it apart for plot holes or predictability should look at another film. Although this isn't the best depiction of Greek mythology it is definitely worthy of watching. I give this one a most respectful 8/10.