A Very Belated Review of Troy

I finally saw Troy today, and I must say that apart from a revisionist view of history (semi Mythology?) that would make MM Joshi blush, costumes, sets and armour straight from 'Xena Warrior Princess' and some very unimpressive special effects, it is still a rather mediocre movie.

As a wannabe Greek History/Mythology fan, I cringed at some of the scenes in the movie, the battle against the Thessalonians being a case in point. Agamemnon, the Emperor of Greece in waiting seemed to be inspired more by Memnon from the 'Scorpion King' than Homer's character. The fate of Paris and Helen, which I believe should have been given some importance at least, is completely overlooked (the movie ends when Achilles dies). However the movie takes inspiration from the legend in some very unexpected places (the Aeneas character, for example).

American Directors are well known for taking artistic license in historical/mythical stories to great lengths with movies like 'Braveheart', 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves', 'U-571', 'Pearl Harbour', 'First Knight' and 'The Mummy' (cringe, cringe). With 'Troy', Wolfgang Peterson boldly goes where all these movies have gone before. Wouldnt it be cool if one day a major Hollywood movie (and not an 'art' film) actually followed the historical/mythological script, rather than make what amounts to "Kilroy was here"-like changes all over the story. You'd still be in contention for the Screeenplay Oscar, Guys. (The same goes for Bollywood, too. What, oh what were the creators of 'Ashoka' thinking?)