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Troy arrived riding a wave of hype, and replete with a rather impressive trailer, poised to cash in on the post-Gladiator revival of swords-and-sandals pictures that would ultimately prove to be shortlived. It was the most commercially successful of the bunch (which also included Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven, and King Arthur), if 300 is excluded, but was far from critically adored, and rightly so. In 2007, Wolfgang Petersen returned to the film to make a 3-hour-plus director's cut, placing it firmly within the tradition of the gargantuan epics of old. That leaves one all-important question: is this just another case of a studio cynically double-dipping to squeeze some more drops of revenue from a film, or does the added material actually make a real difference to the film? Thankfully, it's more a case of the latter, even if the extended cut hardly turns the film into a classic. There's something in the DNA of the epic that makes three-hour running times almost a necessity; what in other films would be padding is in this genre the enriching and deepening of a historic canvas.
Frankly, many of Troy's problems are not overcome in this new incarnation, nor could they have been. The film tries to have the best of both worlds, in that its narrative stance never sides with either the Trojans or the invading Greeks. What could have made for a more challenging and less conventional approach instead results in a film in which there's no-one really to root for and therefore little emotional involvement. It's also a rendered rather dramatically inert by the framework of the story, which has no natural build or momentum and is instead more of a series of episodes. Out of all of the modern epics, Troy is in many ways the most reminiscent of the genre's heyday; it's bloated and ostentatious, and the dramatic arc is secondary to the spectacle, but that's all part of the fun. Like its forebears, the film never quite looks authentic - clothes are too colourful, streets are too clean, the sets look too new - but in this instance it seems appropriate for the mythological, rather than historical, basis of the story.
It also shares the genre's typical propensity for clunky dialogue and exposition, but it's helped to some degree by a fine ensemble of seasoned pros. The likes of Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Sean Bean and Peter O'Toole are all given ample time to chew the scenery, a task which they tackle with gusto. Brad Pitt, however, does not fare particularly well as Achilles. He does certainly look the part but most of the time his performance is restricted to posing and pouting. When he's called upon to show real emotion, it occasionally seems genuine but more often just leaves him looking awkward. It's not all the actor's fault; his character is ill-defined and suffers most from the script's constant impartiality. Much better is Eric Bana as his Trojan counterpart Hector, who always seems a natural fit in the surroundings and is the only character who ever musters any real audience connection. Orlando Bloom's Paris is also a good match for the actor, who inhabits a cowardly pretty boy character more convincingly than he does a heroic knight in Kingdom of Heaven.
Troy is certainly at its best when dealing with action, especially so in the director's cut, which is able to cast off the restrictions put in place by the quest for a PG-13 and fully let loose. (Sanitising violence to make it more kiddie-friendly always seemed counterproductive to me; surely showing the true horrifying extent of it is more honest and truthful, as well as more of a deterrent to seek it in reality.) Bodies are impaled, limbs are sliced, heads are removed from shoulders, and the claret flows. Yet for all the scale and bombast, the only time that it really gets the heart beating is in the final, unavoidable showdown as the Greeks infiltrate the city via the famous horse. All the additions, particularly those to the action scenes, have necessitated a complete re-mixing of the score, and while this mostly works well, there are a couple of exceptions. In particular, Danny Elfman's Planet of the Apes score is cannibalised for the Achilles-Hector face-off, which is highly distracting due to its distinctiveness. Troy had notorious music issues when it was made, with James Horner brought in to record a brand new entire score at the last minute. For the director's cut, they'd have been better served to reinstate Gabriel Yared's original work.
The extras
There's no denying that Troy looks fabulous, and for this go-round the film's colours have received even more of a spruce-up. Wolfgang Petersen gives a genial introduction on the first disc, and a 22-minute feature, "Troy in focus", is basically just an extended chat with the director but covers decent ground for its running time. Otherwise, all the remaining extras are ported over from the previous 2-disc release. As such, they're a decent set, totalling over an hour and covering most aspects of the production, but lacking any deep insight or criticism. You won't find any mention of the score-related trouble, for example. The brief CG gag reel is a welcome touch.
The summary
A qualified success, the director's cut of Troy merely turns a below-average action epic into a slightly above-average one. Still, it's guiltily enjoyable.
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