Troy

By John Anderson | Staff Writer

Legendary warrior Achilles (Brad Pitt) champions the Greeks in their siege of Troy. Wolfgang Petersen directs.

(R). With barely a splash of wine-dark sea and no jealous gods making mischief among the mortals, "Troy" has more in common with a sword-and- sandals extravaganza like "Hercules Unchained" than it does Homer's "Iliad." At the same time, it does possess the aura of the ancient -- at least within the parameters of the Hollywood epic.

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen ("In the Line of Fire"), "Troy" stars a very solid -- literally -- Brad Pitt, as the almost unbeatable Greek warrior Achilles, he of the Olympian parentage and dubious heel. That Pitt looks so buff and beautiful is simply an expression of the film's intended aesthetic -- like so many old "historical" films, "Troy" takes great liberties with its source material (which is purely literary anyway) and is really about the juxtaposition of gorgeous bodies and glorious battle. It's a clean war being fought outside and eventually inside the gates of Troy; if the city had TV, one wonders whether the Priam administration would have allowed it to air footage of the war dead.

While the timing may be odd for an exaltation of opportunistic war, "Troy" is a movie that puts humans in their place. The Greek king Agamemnon (a wonderfully leering and evil Brian Cox) doesn't really care that his brother, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), has lost his wife, Helen (Diane Kruger), to the Trojan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom). He just wants to add Troy to his trophy case. Achilles, Agamemnon's best fighter, holds the king in moral contempt, because in Achilles' mind the purpose of war is to achieve immortality -- in the sense of undying celebrity. "No one will remember you," he tells some lackey, who exhibits less devoted enthusiasm for an upcoming battle, and it is this yearning for glory -- in a world Petersen makes impressibly vast and unknown -- that gives "Troy" any edge at all.

Just as he rendered in a visceral way the womblike atmosphere of his "Das Boot" submarine, Petersen makes the world of 3,200-years-ago Troy a place of unlimited, perilous horizons and infinite expanses -- it's not a small world after all: Men are tiny and insignificant, truly powerful -- unless you're Achilles -- only in massed hordes. Achilles is chief promoter of the cult of the individual, the modern man in a way, because he sees virtue in the medium of war -- unlike Agamemnon, who sees it as a means to an avaricious or lusty end.

Which is not to say under any circumstances that "Troy" isn't also a big slab of cheese. The dialogue is overripe, sometimes absolutely fragrant. "Are you hurt?" Achilles asks the bloodied and manhandled temple virgin Briseis (Rose Byrne), who will become his lover and battle muse (in something of a departure from official myth). Paris and Helen, one of the stupider couples in history or literature, are played with all-too-apt vacuity by dance partners Bloom and Kruger, who look pretty but were born for silent film. Eric Bana's Hector, to whom Achilles will give a post-mortem chariot ride around the walls of Troy, is a strong counterpart to Pitt's Achilles, knowing full well that he's doomed (did he read the book?) and persevering, even when his callow brother Paris slinks away from the whipping he gets from Menelaus. And Pitt shows a lot of nerve, especially going one-on-one with Peter O'Toole in the latter's best scene, in which King Priam begs Achilles for the body of his son.

Toole pulls out all the stops, maybe with his eye on that Oscar that has eluded him for the last 45 years. Pitt, meanwhile, knows he owns the film, the way Achilles owns Troy. Chalk up his restraint, and even his pout, to noblesse oblige.