Troy - just shoot me now and get it over with

Ok, so it's 1:25 in the morning and I just got home from seeing Troy at the local cinematorium. By all rights I should be heading to bed but this was such a spectacular failure of a movie that I have to rant a bit first.

I'll refrain from bitching about plot points, since I never read the source material, though as I understand things the changes were significant and for the most part detrimental. Luckily for me the movie was a looser in every sense of the word, so I have plenty to chew on. It was so bad in fact, that I feel the need to assign blame on a personal level. So everyone who made the list, congratulations, and everyone that didn't, rest assured I'll be burning you in effigy later.

Wolfgang Peterson (Director): Well, it only seems right that I should start with the captain of this particular shipwreck. Honestly, aside from "hey, the Lord Of the Rings had really cool CGI battle scenes", I don't know what the hell he was thinking. Every decision, from top to bottom, was a mistake. Brad Pitt as a Greek? Uh, ok, why not? More CGI army shots than you can count? Well, if 2 worked for LOTR, then 15 must be better. About the only thing he did right was cast Eric Bana as Hector (although if something doesn't change soon, I'm gonna start thinking Eric Bana = Kiss of Death for a movie). But did we really need 3 huge pull-backs to show us the CGI fleet? Five (that's right, five) arial shots of the CGI Greek army marching? CG is cool. We get it.

Roger Pratt (Cinematography): Well, since this movie doesn't give anyone the Director of Photography credit, I'm gonna lump that in here. To anyone who has ever wondered if it's possible to shoot an epic movie on the beautiful beaches of Mexico and get absolutely zero sense of scope, I give you Roger Pratt. There's really nothing wrong with an establishing shot, honest. Go ahead, put a few in, give it a try. It lets the fucking audience get a feel for the environment you British fucktard! I got no sense of what Troy looked like, no sense of what the landscape looked like, nothing. Also, prior to the torture-fest tonight, I didn't think it was possible to shoot an entire battle with close-ups. I guess we were just supposed to infer what was going on based on Brad Pitt's limited range of expressions. I do have to give Roger some credit though, the shot of the sun dawning over the Greek encampment was so cool. Not so cool that we needed to see it twice in 20 minutes, but whatever.

Peter Honess (Editor): In all fairness there's a good chance this movie had a lot of last minute editing done to it. At least that's what I'm hoping is the case, cause if it isn't Peter doesn't know how to put together a scene. I realize the movie is pretty long, but you can't just cut off the beginning and ending of scenes and not expect the audience to be jarred. There was only about 10 people in the theater tonight but you could audibly hear people voicing their confusion as things would jump around. A little tip for you Pete, you know what the mark of good editing is in a movie like this? You don't notice it. Cheesy made-for-tv style zooms win you no points.

James Horner (Score): You know, four hours ago I wouldn't have thought that it was possible for a score to be pretentious. But here I sit, a wiser and more humble man. Worst. Music. Ever. When you try to use the music to make every scene feel more epic and overly important, you accomplish nothing. There needs to be low moments to compliment the high ones, otherwise you just have a din that goes on for three hours and makes your ears bleed. If one were to believe the music they would think every battle was going to be the last one. You just become numb to it after a while.

Ok, I think that's about enough. I'm not even gonna touch the acting, except to say this. Brad Pitt, phoning it in. Orlando Bloom, gayest performance ever (and I mean that in every homosexual sense of the word). Brian Cox, trying his hardest with absolutely nothing to work with. Peter O'Toole, giving the "big eyes" method of acting a shot. Ok, I better stop, otherwise I'll just go on and on and on...

Just please, in the name of all that is holy, don't go see this movie.