I am not ashamed to say that I love Troy unironically – and I saw it in the best place on earth last week in a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
It would certainly be classified as a ‘guilty pleasure’ movie by those who believe in that, and I don’t remember the critics being especially kind to it upon release in 2004 – it has only 53% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
The Independent’s critic Jonathan Romey sniped at the time: ‘Wooden horse, wooden acting, wouldn’t bother if I were you.’
But I’m a full-throated fan girl – and yes, a critic now myself – who considers this historical epic one of my favourite films since sneaking into my local cinema underage to see it when it first came out 21 years ago.
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who assembled a suitably heroic cast featuring the likes of Brad Pitt, Peter O’Toole, Brian Cox, Orlando Bloom, Brendan Gleeson, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger and Julie Christie, Troy feels like one of the last extravagant and deliciously unsubtle ‘history-adjacent’ blockbusters that died out in the noughties.
I also have a lot of love for James Horner’s stirring score and striking production design from Nigel Phelps.
Tone and mood wise, for me, it captured that Bronze Age mythological vibe and grandeur well.
And I share my love of this film knowing everything wrong with it: I have a degree in classics and studied the Iliad, the epic poem by Homer from which this story is most often drawn. Characters dying at the wrong time by the wrong hand in a way that would have a huge impact on a lot of Greek mythology, for example, and crucial characters who don’t even appear.
People have been uncharitable about Game of Thrones scribe David Benioff’s screenplay for Troy, but I actually think he did a good job of distilling it down for the casual cinemagoer and cutting out a lot of faff (nearly half a book of the Iliad is dedicated to listing all the armies that sail to Troy as part of the Achaean alliance).
Yes, there’s clunky dialogue, but moments like Achilles (Pitt) calling Agamemnon (Cox) ‘a sack of wine’ – a direct quote from the Iliad – and Sean Bean’s dulcet tones as Odysseus in the opening and closing narrations, talking of the heroes’ thirst for fame and glory (‘kleos’ in Ancient Greek, and a huge recurring theme in the Iliad) make my heart full.
So when I got the chance to watch Troy among the splendour of a seventeenth-century fort in Malta – where it was largely filmed – I seized the opportunity.
As part of the Mediterrane Film Festival, in its third year, the programme focused on screening movies shot in Malta as well as newer releases, to promote the country as a burgeoning film production hub and growing player in the industry internationally.
In a unique set-up – certainly the only one of its kind I know of – Malta Film Studios boasts Fort Ricasoli as part of its backlot, which can – and has – stood in for anything from Ancient Rome to the Red Keep.
Famously, the Colosseum for the Gladiator films was built right slap bang in the middle of the fort here, but my delayed flight meant I arrived too late to watch Gladiator II within Fort Ricasoli.
For me though, Troy represented the greater tug on my film-loving heartstrings anyway; I understood the incredible opportunity to watch it right where the streets of Troy were constructed for shooting, and among left-over movie statutes strewn across the lot.
There were even costumes on display thanks to the festival, which included those of Eric Bana as Hector and Peter O’Toole as Priam.
Such was my dedication to seeing Troy that I even missed a press dinner: that’s proper dedication from a journalist.
I was nostalgic for the film and hadn’t seen it in a good few years – I’m not a serial movie repeater and have a good memory, especially for formative film experiences like this one – but it turned out there was another surprise in store for me.
For I realised from the opening shots that we were, in fact, watching the director’s cut, something I’d never yet had the opportunity to do.
At around 30 minutes longer, it was also noticeably gorier than the theatrical cut – but I was also thrilled to see just a smidgen more screen time for Bean’s Odysseus, among others.
The only niggle was that the music didn’t quite thrill me as expected, as a fan patiently waiting for the propulsive theme as Pitt’s hero and his men take the beach at Troy in one go. I later discovered my instincts and ears were correct as this longer cut dramatically changed the score of the film.
But what a treat, watching acting legend O’Toole on majestic form, wringing every drop of pathos out of the script, while Brian Cox enjoys himself immensely as the scenery-chewing villain of the piece in early Logan Roy mode.
I always had a soft spot for Eric Bana too, and his ability to sell the nobility and sensibleness of a strait-laced hero, while Pitt did a decent job in the tricky role of an arrogant demigod gifted with legendary prowess as a warrior and an unquenchable thirst for glory. It also helped that he sold the physicality well and was choreographed with a cool but deadly signature move. (Yes, it is a shame though that they chickened out and made Garrett Hedlund’s Patroclus Achilles’ ‘cousin’ rather than his lover – nowadays we would have hopefully got that storyline).
As a viewing experience, watching Troy on massive outdoor screening, with the booming sound, spectacular surroundings and a packed audience truly cannot be rivalled.
It helped even more that the temperature cooled down to perfect as night fell and the expert lighting showed off Fort Ricasoli and all her cinematic treasures to their best advantage.
Honestly, it’s an experience I will never forget.
And if I’ve got you in the mood for Sir Christopher’ Nolan’s take on The Odyssey next summer, Troy’s sort-of sequel – unsurprisingly it is my most anticipated film – I can recommend that as a much more engrossing read than the Iliad.
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