Troy - Mainly Spoiler Free

"Where the women are women and so are the men. Only the men are prettier."

-Shamelessly pinched from Chash

That thing I said I about not mentioning movies here because I see too many? To hell with that. Spent 5, maybe 6 hours at the cinema yesterday. First movie was The Butterfly Effect, which scared the shit out of me and may have convinced the stranger I was sitting next to that I needed to be in some kind of intense therapy. But that's not really saying that much. It doesn't take much to scare me. Suffice it to say that I almost walked out of this one I was that terrified. That's saying a bit more; I've never walked out of a movie in my life.

Then I went to see Troy. And tonight I went back to see it again. Um. Am I losing my credibility as a level 14 philistine?

In my defense, I have never read the book and therefore had few expectations. Maybe I have read the book. I don't really remember. I think I started reading it in russian once whilst bored in the school library, and I'm fairly sure I read the Hector-Achilles fight scene in english as well. But it was a long time ago, I was probably too young if it's not something I can remember properly. I think I gave up and decided it was just silly once my young mind caught the gist of it basically being blokes riding around in chariots for 10 years taking it in turns to chop each other to pieces one by one. Yes, a cheap copy of the full full text lacking both explanatory notes and adult supervision probably was a little ambitious for a 10-year-old. I don't count it as a book I've read.

But I'm rather well romanced by this movie. It was... it had really bad bits. I'm not denying that. I know very well just how inadequate and annoyingly hollywood certain aspects were. How some of the acting left something to be desired of, how certain changes to the storyline and characters were really a bit pathetic. As a whole, however, it thoroughly captured my imagination. It made me want to write and paint and to just know that world. In terms of the book characters, in terms of the flawed movie characters, however possible.

Troy made me want to live it. I want to be greek foot soldier #572. I want to live long enough to see most of the movie and then I want to get killed off unremarkably but gorily, nameless to the end. Because if greek foot soldier #572 didn't get killed off and didn't become just yet another corpse then it wouldn't be real, and it wouldn't be the full experience. To walk with giants. Yeah.

Oh, and here's a good review of the nitpicks. The only ideas I really have to add are that I'm fairly sure the shield formation Achilles implemented was actually something the Romans came up with, and that it's really not possible to even stand up, let alone walk, with an arrow through your heel.

Last random thoughts I just have to mention: Eric Bana, Sean Bean, and Peter O'Toole are amazing. Brian Cox is the same guy that played Major Hogan in the Sharpe series, and the soundtrack is really annoying. The song at the end in particular was severely mundane, but for some reason it's stuck in my head and that probably means I'll end up buying it anyway. I'll see how the whole movie stands up to a third viewing.