Troy DVD Review (Brad Pitt) Empire Movies

TROY DVD REVIEW

Troy (2-Disc Widescreen Edition)
(Warner Home Video)

The Movie

The Extras

Reviewed by

7.5/10

7/10

Liam

I've seen Troy three times now and I'm still a little on the fence about it. While I loved the action sequences, I just didn't identify with any of the characters - and it's hard to like a movie when you don't like that characters.

To try and sum it up, in the movie there is Paris (Orlando Bloom), one of the Princes of Troy. One night he runs off with Helen, the wife of one of his rivals, and in doing so, ignites a war. So, the Greeks unleash a thousand ships upon Troy with the help of their weapon of choice, Achilles (Brad Pitt). Achilles, however, isn't really interested in war - instead he's in it for personal glory - to be remembered throughout time as the world's greatest warrior. Out to stop him, however, is Hector (Eric Bana), the other Prince of Troy, and Troy's greatest warrior. Needless to say, the battle was one of the greatest the world at the time had ever known and has since become a legend passed down, from generation to generation, now coming to us now as a spectacular motion picture event.

As I said, I wasn't really into the characters. Paris was a fancy boy who you couldn't really root for. The way Eric Bana played Hector, you just knew he was gonna get his ass kicked. And finally Brad Pitt. I really enjoy Brad Pitt, but his character here just wasn't the type of hero you root for. He was selfish and vain and really, I was almost rooting for him to lose. Also, The supporting characters, although well-played by the likes of Peter O'Toole, Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson, were none too likeable either. The one standout was Diane Kruger as Helen of Troy, although she was only nice to look at, and really nothing other than that.

Troy comes as a two-disc edition. The first disc contains the movie while the second hold the special features. The first feature is titled "In the Thick of the Battle". This looks at what went into making the movie including looks at the weapons (swords, arrows) and also at the training done for the film including stunts and choreography of the battle. This feature runs roughly 15 minutes.

Next, "Ruins to Reality" looks at bringing the story to life, from the perspective of art direction and set design. Most interesting here is the design of the Trojan horse. Running 14 minutes, we hear about how the filmmakers researched the history of the period to create the sets and provide the most accurate depiction possible on film. It's nice to see that some filmmakers actually attempt to create actual settings rather than just taking the easy route of making it all CG.

This isn't to say, however, that the movie was made without any CG effects, which brings us to our next feature, titled "Troy: An Effects Odyssey". Broken down into a two parts, we look separately at Visual Effects and Sonic Effects. In Visual Effects, there's creating the "thousand ships" that were launched to retrieve Helen and the creation of virtual people to give the impression that thousands of warriors are attacking Troy. Sonic Effects shows how some of the sounds from the film were created, which is a nice little lesson for any wannabe filmmakers out there.

The last major feature included here is a "Gallery of the Gods" which give a brief look at twelve Gods and Goddesses with information about who they are and what they're responsible for. This may be valuable to any students out there researching Greek mythology. A nice extension to this feature would have been a gallery of the characters in the film to give a little more background - but I guess for that, you're going to have to pick up a history book.

We're also treated to the film's theatrical trailer.

As I said, I enjoyed this movie for the action and the story, but I didn't really like the characters. Maybe if I had known a bit more about Greek mythology beforehand, I would have appreciated them more. However, for the casual viewer, it's difficult to sympathize with characters that just aren't that nice to begin with.

Features
"In The Thick of the Battle" Featurette
"From Ruins to Reality" Featurette
"Troy: An Effects Odyssey" Featurette
Gallery of the Gods (3-D Animated Guide to Greek Myths)

Video
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Audio
English 5.1
French (Dubbed in Quebec)

Subtitles
English
French
Spanish
Closed Captioned

Release Date
January 4, 2005

Rating
R

Length
162 mins.

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