Tim Atwood
World History to 1500
Film Review
Troy (2004)
Directed by: Wolfgang Peterson
The movie I selected for my film review was Troy, starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom.
This movie is based off of Homer’s The Iliad, Which is an epic story about a war between Troy
and Sparta that may or may not have occurred over 3,200 years ago. The plot of the movie is
about Paris, prince of Troy, falling in love with Helen of Sparta. Paris convinces Helen to run
away with him back to Troy and Helen’s husband Menalus, ruler of Sparta, finds out about it.
Menalus launches an all out attack on Troy to get his wife back, but also to conquer a strong
nation and have control over their army. The movie actually focuses around Achilles, played by
Brad Pitt. Achilles is a brash Spartan warrior, but he is also a natural born killer. Nobody could
match the skill of Achilles. He was considered to be the greatest warrior to ever live, but he
answered to nobody.
The movie was full of bloody fight scenes involving sliced throats, spears puncturing
skulls, and lots of swords going through the hearts of soldiers. Achilles ends up killing Hector,
Paris’s brother, and the Trojan army wipes out tons of Spartans with their skilled archers and
brute force. Finally Odysseus comes up with the idea of the Trojan horse, which ends up with
Troy burning to the ground, but not before Paris kills Achilles with an arrow to his heel and a
few more to his chest.
Overall I thought the movie was alright but not great. With a running time of three
hours, it was hard to sit through the whole movie without getting a little bored. Even some of
the fight scenes dragged on too long. Since this movie is based on Greek mythology, I was
hoping to see more mythological characters in the film. According to the Iliad, Achilles’ mother
is Thetis, a sea-nymph. Achilles gets offended by his own army and asks Thetis to have Zeus
help the Trojan army defeat the Spartans. None of this is mentioned in the movie. In The Iliad,
there were many Gods that helped in this war but the movie does not tell about any Gods
playing a part in the war. The movie does mention that Apollo, the sun God, is on the Trojan’s
side but he did not do anything to help them, even after the Spartans defiled his temple. The
war also lasted ten years in the book, but in the movie the war ended in a couple of months.
There were a lot of inaccuracies in the movie but if you are an average Joe who has never heard
of Homer and you love Brad Pitt, this is the movie for you.
According to Greek mythology, The Trojan war started over a golden apple. At a
wedding in Olympus, Eris, the goddess of discord, threw a golden apple on a table and said that
it belonged to the prettiest God. Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all tried to grab it. To settle this
matter, Zeus told Paris, the prince of Troy, to make the decision on who is prettiest. The three
God’s tried to bribe Paris. Hera offered him power, Athena offered him wealth, and Aphrodite
offered him the most beautiful woman alive. Paris chose Aphrodite (a decision that most men
would make the same way) and Aphrodite said he could have Helen of Sparta. Paris then set off
to Sparta and captured his bride. Helen apparently did not put up much of a fight and probably
went willingly. To top it all off, Paris robbed Menalus of most of his treasures while he captured
his wife. I can understand why Menalus was so angry because I would be pissed off if somebody
came in and stole my wife and all of my stuff too. There are a lot of interesting topics that they
completely left out of the movie that I would have loved to see, including Odysseus pretending
to be insane so he would not have to go to war. It makes you wonder if Odysseus knew that it
would be a long and dangerous trip home that would be more dangerous than the war itself.
I find it very interesting how much the Trojans believed in symbolism. In the movie, a
Trojan warrior claimed to have seen an eagle carrying a serpent in its talons. This apparently
meant that the Gods were on their side. And of course the Trojan horse was supposed to be a
peace offering and a symbol of the Spartans’ surrender. I guess you could say that the Trojans’
superstitions and beliefs in symbols eventually led to their downfall. It just goes to show that if
you want to win a war, you can’t just sit around and look for signs that the Gods are going to
help you. You have to fight to win. Also, you should never accept any gift that an enemy gives
you. The Trojan horse is a shining example of how overconfidence and downright stupidity can
lead to an entire city’s demise.