We have the same views regarding this movie....Pitt has no depth in some dramatic scenes....eclipsed by Eric Bana, the competent Peter O'Toole. And the worst Howard Shore musical score.....it cant be at par with Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR.
tries to echo the scope & grandeur of Gladiator but never achieved the power & sweep of it....but in fairness to Pitt he excels at the action scenes but lacks emotion....
I tend to agree. I rewatched the film last weekend and the more I didn't get any emotional involvement (see my first impressions in an earlier post). Gladiator IS an Oscar Best Picture. Even comparisons with ROTK, another Oscar Best, may be a bit strained. But I agree that the battle scenes have epic sweep comparable to the two.
I reviewed the Iliad and Homeric legends on the net and the film is really a very loose transciption of these. The filmakers just followed the basic plotline to the bone (perhaps not even): Helen and Paris ignite the seige on Troy; Kings Agamemnon, Menaleus, Odysseus, and Ajax invade the beaches of Troy (shades of Saving Private Ryan
); Hector kills Patroclus; Achilles kills Hector; Paris Kills Achilles; the Trojan horse enters Troy allowing the Greeks to burn Troy; the end.
Never mind that the war lasted for more than 10 (I think closer to 20)years. Never mind that Patroclus was Achilles' ardent lover (being gay was common among Greeks at that time, apparently) - a real passion that inflamed Achilles to seek vengeance on Hector. Never mind that Agamemnon sacrificed his beloved daughter to gain favor from the Gods (a singular act that would have rationalized his consuming compulsion to take Troy at all cost). Never mind that the Gods played an active role in the fate of Troy. Perhaps, taking away the mythological aspects of the Iliad grossly took away the drama and the filmakers had to inject a shortcut to the timeline and offer some plausible mortal excuses for why the events had to happen.
It was quite a happy conincidence that a VCD on
Helen Of Troy , a telemovie with John-Rhyes Davies (the Gimli character of LOTR) as King Priam, etc, was at Astro and I promptly bought it just to compare. I think the telemovie had more meat and hued a lot closer to the illiad and aenid.
But a hollywood film is a hollywood film. Asking it to be faithfull to the source might be asking too much. All in all, the film is an excellent visual and aural feast. The DVD does justice to those elements. The film's story just begs for more drama. And Legolas is Legolas, wherever he is.
Orlando Bloom will really have to work hard to take off that image. The farther he is from any bow and arrow, the better.
Much has been said about the music of the film. I have nothing against it though. It is so much like that of Gladiator. I think it also has echoes of LOTR's music with ENYA-like renditions. Even the telemovie Helen of Troy has the same brooding wordless singing style. Come to think of it, maybe its a style that somehow befits historical and legendary retelling these days. It's definitely not unique and won't win any academy award.
