A website of ramblings from some eighteen year old who has been told he's a good writer but thinks otherwise.
A movie review without even seeing the movie.
Published on May 14, 2004 By brackenfish In Entertainment
I may have mentioned this a few times before, but I’ll say it again anyway. I work at a movie rental store. Now, I know this position doesn’t entitle me as an expert in film criticism, but it damn well should. I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of movies, people! I’m around movies all the time! I even steal some of the movie signs we have hanging around out store just to throw it in my closet when I get home! So, believe me when I say that the new movie Troy will probably suck.

Now before all you people who actually went and saw the movie get all uppity, allow me to state that I have not, in fact, seen the movie. I’ve seen a few trailers here and there, and I’ve learned about the Trojan War, so technically, I KNOW the movie. But I still HAVEN’T SEEN it. With that being said, allow me to explain the reasoning behind my prediction.

1. Troy will suck because it’s a Warner Brothers film. I’ve been paying attention to the latest releases on video, and all of the ones that have been Warner Brothers are god-awful; Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Loony Toons: Back in Action, Torque (not out yet, but they couldn’t even make the previews interesting). See what I mean? In fact, thinking back, I can’t recall a Warner Brothers movie that I liked except for the first Matrix, and Troy won’t be the next Matrix. The reason the first Matrix was so good was because it had the new idea of living in a digital world. That and awesome guns. And Troy doesn’t have any of those, unless it’s chock full of historical inaccuracies.

2. Troy will suck because of the typical way Hollywood characterizes the protagonist and the antagonist. In the case of Troy, I believe it may be exaggerated even more because of Brad Pitt being the protagonist and some other dude I’ve never heard of as the antagonist. Who wants to see Brad Pitt do something evil? No one. Who wants to see Brad Pitt beat up on some evil actor who no one’s ever heard of? Everyone except me. Also, the whole protagonist/antagonist thing shouldn’t apply to the Trojan War in my mind. Even though the story was told from the prospective of the Greeks as the protagonists as they destroyed the evil antagonist Trojans, there was no clear good guys and bad guys in that war. A boy from Troy steals a woman from Greece, and the Greeks overreact and destroy the whole town. If anything, the Greeks should be the bad guys, not the other way around like the movie will probably be.

3. Troy will suck because it is a movie based on a historical event and it doesn’t star Russell Crowe. Come on, Warner Brothers, we all know by now that if you are making a historical movie, you have to have Russell Crowe in it! That crazy Australian drunkard was awesome in Gladiator and Master and Commander, and he would have been awesome in Troy. But no, you have to go and get Brad “the mexican” Pitt instead. Actually, I’m just kidding about the Russell Crowe thing. I don’t think Brad Pitt will disappoint. I just needed a third reason because three reasons sound a hell of a lot better than two. But still, Russell Crowe is awesome.

Well, there you have it. Feel free to comment with some reasons why Troy will suck that I may not have thought of. Or, go ahead and refute my arguments. Just, if you do, please do it in an intelligent manner that actually makes sense. I don’t want to see thousands of comments tomorrow all saying that Troy will be awesome because “Brad Pitt is so hot and dreamy and that’s all that matters. And by the way, Love Don’t Cost A Thing was awesome too because Nick Cannon is so hot and dreamy, etc.” And, of course, anyone who wasted ten bucks to see Troy tonight, feel free to validate my arguments

Comments (Page 1)
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on May 14, 2004
I"m going to see it tonight..so I will let you know if you are right or not..
on May 14, 2004
I have learned in my high school career that taking an in-depth Western Civ class will ruin every historical film you ever watch after.
on May 21, 2004
This article SUCKS!
on May 21, 2004
I thought there was no evil guy in the movie really. I mean I sympathized with achilles but with paris and his family too. only the greek kings were very vain. And i thought the movie was good.
on May 21, 2004
My wife and just saw Troy. It sucks. And actually for one of the reasons you mentioned. There are no defined "good guys" and no defined "bad guys". No one to hate, or be passionate about. As a Cinematographer myself, it also sucked. They completely ignored what should have been pratical nightime lighting sceanarios for their interiors. Gee....where is all this gorgeous beautiful lighting coming from, with no candle or torchlight flicker?
on May 21, 2004
Okay one, your right the movie would have been ten times better ( I have not seen it but I want to if that even fucking counts) with Russ Crowe in it... I mean come on.. there is no way in hell you can do such a massive ass movie with "gladiator-esque" lines in and have some fucking blonde dude saying them, whast he say "eternity is yours! Take it!?!" Come on that coming from Brad "Im not good in big movies" Pitt just sounds retarded, but coming from Russ, not thats fucking expected! I mean come on Gladiator is the fucking bomb! I mean even the soundtrack is the shit...
As for Russ being an Aussie through and through... we will pretend the Kiwi was born in Oz and let it slide... other than that... I still want to see it, I mean I have read both books completely... I wanna see what they make of it, now if they actually did take out the cheesy lines that only Russ has the balls enough to say and make them believeable then it might have made is a better looking and sounding movie... we shall see.

Thomas
on May 23, 2004
It did suck, I walked out.

I wanted to leap up and encourage Brad 'Act brad! Act! Act like you have never acted before' because he was trying, you could see it in every line. And that sucked.

It was boring, repetitive, predicatible, stodgy, the sets were unconvincing, the battle scenes..... confused, the 'one on one' fights were very poor.

Any way, I've didn't see the end, and I'm glad.
on May 23, 2004
The only bad guy for me in the movie was Agamemnon. overall i didnt like it. probably because once you've read the book the movie always turn out disappointing.
on May 23, 2004
Back in high school, many, many years ago, we were actually forced to read Homer's Iliad. It's a great story, full of human heros and mythical dieties, and has managed to remain a part of our culture for thousands of years because IT IS such a great story. That is, until Hollywood got its grimy mitts on it. This "Troy" movie is based on Homer about as much as "O, Brother Where Art Thou?" is based on Homer's other great epic, The Odessey.

Just to expose the most outrageous Hollywood "improvements" on Homer's story: Agamemnon was not killed at Troy, but returned victorious to Greece; Hector did not kill Ajax, and was only saved from being killed BY him by divine intervention; Achilles "cousin" was in fact his boy-toy and obsession, while Perseus played a relatively minor role in the disagreements netween Achilles and Agamemnon; Cassandra, Priam's daughter and high priestess of Posidon's temple, warned the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into the city. She wasn't important enough to make it into the movie at all.

Sometimes Hollywood gets lucky, butchers history and still manages to tell a compelling story. "The Last Samurai" is a great recent example of this. But this "Troy" is just awful.
on May 23, 2004
Who wants to see Brad Pitt beat up on some evil actor who no one’s ever heard of? Everyone except me.


actually you're not the only one.

10-4
on May 23, 2004
Its kinda got the aussie russell crowe factor with Eric Bana - he was in Black Hawke Down (we won't mention HULK)

having said that I haven't seen the movie either as yet but I'm going with expectations that it will be completely historically incorrect. Like alot of hollywood blockbusters - power for the cause.
on May 23, 2004
For anyone who is interested Eric Bana (Paris) started his career here in Oz as a comedian. He was excellent. In fact, he was bloody excellent. He was concise with his observations (his impersonation of one of our TV stars, Ray Martin (ex-journalist now doing daytime chat shows) was hysterical). I haven't seen him act except in his first film, Chopper (a film based on the diaries of Chopper Read a real life standover man here in Melbourne who was a most colourful kinda bloke) and he was excellent in that.
I can't be bothered seeing Black Hawk Down not will I see Troy but if he ever does another comedy role I'll be there.
I hope he remembers his roots next time he chooses a script.
on May 23, 2004
although slightly misinformed stuart does have some good points. Eric Bana played Hector (orlando bloom was paris)
Ray Martin is still a journalist - he hosts A Current Affair every night at 6:30pm and he hasn't done day time chat shows for about 3-5 years. Kerry Anne took over his midday then it was axed.
Chopper wasn't his first movie - remember the castle? he was the boyfriend/husband of sophie lee's character tracey.

Actually i think Black hawke down was before Chopper.

And he has done comedy since - The Nugget (stephen curry, vince colosimo)

oh and he cameo'd in finding nemo

But Eric certainly did get his start in comedy. And he was VERY funny on full frontal and eric bana live.
on May 23, 2004

I don't understand how you can write an article saying that a movie is 'going to suck'... if you haven't seen it, how can you pass judgment on it? 


I went 'n' saw it today with my girlfriend, and I thought it was pretty good.  I do think it could have been a whole lot better, but all in all it wasn't a bad movie. 


I'll just leave it at that

on May 24, 2004
imajinit

You're right. I shouldn't pass judgement on something if I haven't even experienced it. That is one of the things that gets on my nerves when I see other people do it.

However, as I said in my article, I have seen a great deal of movies. Many of those movies I thought would be bad before I even saw them, but I figured that I shouldn't judge something before I saw it. So, I saw it, and it sucked. After a while, I began predicting whether future movies will suck or be awesome. It's turned into a my own personal form of gambling with my ego and the validity of the $10 for the movie ticket at stake.

Still, though, I see your point. I can't really think of a good way to conclude this, so I'll just stop.
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