I watched this movie last night on DVD and I really liked it! Brad Pitt, Eric Banna, Orlando Bloom,Dianne Kruger, Brendan Gleeson, Peter O'toole ad Julie Christie mad up a great cast! Sadly, Brad Pitt dies and is buried at a funeral. Still I highly recommend this movie!
shareIt's a good film, although I felt it was lacking a certain something to put it over the top for me. It might have been a lack of real personal drive... The characters didn't resonate quite strongly enough for me. Something was off, at least in a small way, so it's not an A+ for me. The negatives would be that I never really felt Achilles' relationships were established strongly enough: I don't know why he's so angry about Patroclus, nor do I feel for why he's so smitten with Briseis. I'd also site a bit of under-writing. It doesn't dive into the true meaning of heroism, what being remembered means to Achilles, the power of love as a driving force in war, the nature of family, etc. Huge themes to the stories, but not fully-explored.
That said, it's an epic, the source material is terrific, and the mythological story is one that has quite a bit of gravitas. The fights are extremely well-done and the movie is shot with great care and in such a way that it evokes the grandeur of the story. I LOVE the Achilles v. Hector fight, which showcases the top human warrior and this near-god he faces. Hector is extremely well-played by Bana. Peter O'Toole delivers an unbelievably good performance as Priam, and although I nitpicked the themes and writing up there, I think they still work for the most part (just not fully-explored). The film is pretty much perfectly cast. Who else but Brad Pitt to play Achilles? Who else but Diane Kruger and Orlando Bloom as Helen and Paris?
Good write-up. Except perhaps for Gladiator, can you think of a better example of its genre in the 21st century?
BTW I'd say Bana is an underrated actor. He's a great performer but never quite caught on like he should have.
Sword & Sandal? Epic? Historical action film?
Yeah, films of this nature are thin on the ground, and great or excellent ones are, obviously, even thinner.
A better example? Maybe not. The finest films of this type in the 21st century are 300, The Last Samurai, Kingdom of Heaven (director's cut), Gladiator, and yeah, probably Troy. But, of course, they don't make many of them to begin with. Depending on your mood, you might not even really count 300.
I'd probably prefer Kingdom of Heaven to this, but only if we're talking director's cut, and I'd put The Last Samurai at the top.
Depending on how much the era matters, of course, some of those might not count, and if you wanted to stretch it further, Gangs of New York might kinda qualify. It's an epic for sure, it's historical, the fighting might have the option of gunpowder, but it's mostly done with close-combat, and it's got the right scale. But maybe it's too modern for what you're looking for.
I'd go:
Gangs of New York (if applicable)
The Last Samurai
Gladiator
Kingdom of Heaven (director's cut)
Troy
300
Bana almost always does great work, doesn't he? I think Munich is his best work that I've seen.
I was thinking strictly sword-and-sandal so definitely not Gangs of New York. I see where you're going with The Last Samurai, but also wrong era and wrong part of the world. Same for Kingdom of Heaven.
So from your list, that leaves Troy, Gladiator and 300. There are some others we can add: Alexander, The Last Legion, The Eagle, Centurion. I didn't know this, but apparently both Spartacus and Quo Vadis were re-adapted, which sounds interesting.
You're probably right that Munich was Bana's best film. I think it is, overall, an underappreciated movie. I still remember seeing it in the theater. Bana also did well in his supporting role in Hanna.
Ah, yes, if it's sword-and-sandal, then Gangs is definitely out.
Medieval though it is, I'd have thought Kingdom of Heaven was still close enough, particularly since its another city siege drama.
With the more limited genre, yes, Gladiator and Troy were probably the best, although depending on my mood I'd rather watch 300. 300 feels less connected than Kingdom of Heaven to me, perhaps because of the fantasy elements; it has no interest in being historical at all, whereas Gladiator and Troy at least make a gesture at it.
How about all-time? Forget limiting to the 21st Century, what if bring in all of them?
I've seen comparatively few, but I'm guessing it'd be tough to make a list without Ben-Hur or Spartacus at the top, right?
When I think sword-and-sandal, I think it's one genre divided into two sub-genres. The first is made up of entries that strive for realism (like Troy and Gladiator) and the second includes fantasy elements (like Clash of the Titans and Hercules).
If we think all-time, definitely Ben-Hur is hovering near the top. Spartacus I'm ashamed to say I've only seen bits and pieces of. I need to sit down and watch the whole thing.
Cleopatra I think qualifies as being of the genre, and while I wouldn't put it in the top tier, I do enjoy it. And for B-movie, popcorn fun I actually like Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii.
Alexander should've been great but wasn't. Watchable certainly, but not great.
One that I haven't seen but would like to see is Quo Vadis.
Ben-Hur would have to be, yeah.
I haven't seen a lot of them. Like, just looking over the lists of "top S&S films", a bunch (Quo Vadis being one) I haven't seen, or maybe even heard of. I don't know how popular a genre it is, anymore. I think the peplum pictures were very briefly really popular, and now they're really short on popularity.
300 would definitely be in that second category, then, right? The fantasy elements? Okay, there's nothing overt in there like magic, but with some of those characters and stances, it's just too stylized to be realistic.
Alexander I didn't both with because reviews, both critics and public, were BAD. That was really disappointing, too, because I remember watching the trailer and seeing the horse soldier and the elephant soldier rearing up on their respective mounts, and that shot was fantastic!
At the time, they were developing two Alexander films, one of which would have starred Leonardo DiCaprio. Both had a lot of pedigree and promise, and it was set up to be a real close match. Then one got cancelled and the other panned.
I love movies like this so I've seen quite a few. There's something about ancient Greece and Rome that really fascinates me. In many ways (though certainly not all), they feel like civilizations who climbed to heights that we today have failed to reach. Also, I'm a Christian and so the Roman era is the New Testament era, which adds an extra level of interest.
This seems to be a genre that fades in and out of popularity but it never dies completely. Hollywood likes to revisit it at regular intervals, whether in the form of movies or shows. Just in fairly recent memory, we've gotten the Spartacus TV show, Immortals (terrible movie but they still made it), Clash of the Titans (pretty good, even underrated I'd say), Wrath of the Titans (bad sequel), Pompeii (as I said before, fun popcorn flick), that Hercules movie with The Rock (not bad), Centurion (gritty but well-made), The Eagle (could be better but worth a watch if you're into these kinds of movies), and The Legend of Hercules (LOL). I for one support the genre's immortality.
Alexander was not a "bad" movie. I would actually say it's a "fairly good" movie. But considering the director and the cast, it certainly doesn't live up to its potential. For some reason when this happens people sometimes overreact and act like a film that simply isn't as good as it should be is a disaster (think Godfather III). I actually recommend that you watch it, but make it the director's cut and go into it with the right expectations.
I tend to like them, too, but I'm not a major aficionado. I liked epics a lot, but I have no special preference for the specific sword & sandal variety; I'm just as happy with Lawrence of Arabia as I am Ben-Hur.
The New Testament era is woefully undermined for material, and they (Hollywood, filmmakers generally) really should do something with the Book of Acts and the early church. There is so much material, whether from an explicitly Christian perspective, or just a historical one.
I'd say epics chug along, but I'm not sure about the S&S subgenre. Most of the films and shows you've listed aren't that talked about. Spartacus was, and Wrath of the Titans got decent attention, but stuff like The Eagle didn't seem to me like they got more than a glance or two. The Rock's Hercules film didn't blip on my radar at all.
I might check out Alexander, then, on your recommendation (and with those caveats). Yes, I hear you with the expectations vs. reality thing undercutting reasonable films. I think this happened with the second and third Matrix movies. They were weird and wild action films, and I don't think they were good, but I don't think they would have garnered the negativity they did had the first film not set the bar SO HIGH. I haven't watched Part III of the Godfather trilogy, but I sorta figured that's what happened there.
Apparently, Stanley Kubrick was working on a Napoleon film. That would've been terrific. That's another moment in history that could be mined for way more film content than it has been.
Totally agreed on the book of Acts. It is virtually neglected entirely. I think NBC did do a mini-series called A.D. that was an Acts-based sequel to History Channel's series The Bible, and I know that Jim Caviezel did a movie where he played Paul called Paul, Apostle of Christ, but other than that I know of no productions that focus on that time period.
If you do like Bible-based dramas, you should really check out a series called The Chosen. Like Ben-Hur, it tells a narrative that incorporates events from the Bible but does so within the framework of a larger story. The filmmakers say they want it to run for seven seasons to tell the full story they want to tell. It's entirely crowd-funded, but the production values are high. Here's a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-AJdKty74M
If you haven't seen it, I would also recommend Risen with Ralph Fiennes.
Regarding the S&S genre, clearly someone is watching these films since they keep making them. In fact, I am one of them. Obviously I saw every film that I mentioned. They definitely have an audience even if it's not a huge audience. Another film I enjoyed was The Last Legion from 2007.
You really should check out Alexander, if only to be able to say you've seen it and to be able to talk about it. I really don't think it's a "bad" film. Like I said, it's just not a great film, and it's not a film that lived up to the potential of the Alexander story + Oliver Stone + Great Cast combo that was in play. But it's worth watching.
I actually avoided Godfather III for several years because I had always heard what a bad movie it was. Then I decided to finally sit down and watch and it was fine. It was a solidly "good" movie. It just wasn't on the level of its predecessors.
I think I remember that about Kubrick. Man, you're right, that would've been great. I really enjoyed Barry Lyndon, which was set around the same time period and same part of the world.
I do wonder if people avoid Acts because it's not "sexy". Like, it's not a commonly-told story throughout church culture, or at least, not as much as the Gospels or Moses (which get the most play), or even stuff like Noah (Russel Crowe). Paul's story is well-known, but Paul is mostly known for writing letters, and the rest of it is neglected.
The stuff I'd *really* want to see would be really uncomfortable all-around, I think. I'm talking about something of an actual historic look at the early church. But that would likely suffer the same fate as Silence (Scorsese's picture), because the early church wouldn't be recognizable to the Bible Belt (the target audience), and I don't think others really want to see the level of persecution that Christianity went through.
Furthermore, the main characters wouldn't be Maximus or Spartacus. Nobody's picking up a sword and hewing limbs for God. It's just Stephen getting crushed by rocks. Not terribly glamorous.
Thumping good stories to be had there, though.
Risen is on my list, and I'll bump it up a bit thanks to your recommendation.
I haven't seen Barry Lyndon, but like all Kubrick films I haven't seen, I definitely plan to check it out at some point.
Definitely check out Risen and don't sleep on The Chosen either.
I think that, like much of the Bible, you can't make a movie that includes ONLY the information found in the book of Acts. You have to take that information and build a compelling story around it.
This is that NBC series by the way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.D._The_Bible_Continues
This conversation has inspired me to put the DVD on hold at my local library. I'll pick it up this week.
Definitely check out Barry Lyndon. It's good. Back to Napoleon, are there ANY good movies about Napoleon? I don't know of any.
I'll check them out.
As to Napoleon on film, I ran through a list on Wikipedia, and found very little.
I discounted things like adaptations of War & Peace, which are about that story, no Napoleon, per se (although, full confession, having not read Tolstoy's tome, I have no way of knowing if that story is Napoleon-centric or not).
Many films have Napoleon in them, like Love and Death or Time Bandits, but they aren't "about" Napoleon.
A striking number of films deal with his exiles and final days. Monsieur N., The Emperor's New Clothes, Eagle in a Cage, and Napoleon at St. Helena.
Several others focus on Napoleon in one battle. These are Napoleon (2007), Waterloo (obviously), Austerlitz, and The Battle of Waterloo.
There is another interesting subcategory which stresses the Emperor's love life over his combat career: Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story, Desiree, Conquest, A Royal Divorce, and Napoleon and Love.
Finally, there are the bigger-picture Napoleon stories that cover "everything". Both called Napoleon, one is a film from 1955, the other a miniseries from 2002.
There are two Italian comedies, a 1927 silent film about his early life and battles, and an Egyptian film called Adieu Bonaparte that I have very little information about.
Deiree was praised by Lawrence Olivier for Brando's excellent performance as the General, so that one might be the best place to start.
Also interesting: Ian Holm played him in Time Bandits, Napoleon in Love, and The Emperor's New Clothes...
None of these films seems to have universal acclaim the way Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia has. It's definitely subject matter ripe for film.
Thanks for that info. I'll have to look into some of those titles.
It sounds like that 2002 miniseries may be the closest thing to the kind of Napoleon biopic that I'd like to see.
I don't think I've seen any of these - not the ones focused on Napoleon, anyway (I've seen stuff like Love and Death), but the miniseries is probably a good place to start. I'm curious about The Emperor's New Clothes, which looked like it might be quite fun and humorous, and because of Olivier's comments, Brando's performance in Desiree I think would be good to see.
shareHere's my list of all-time favorite sword & sandal flicks (currently 29) along with my commentaries: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066347537/
(I'm interpreting 'sword & sandal' in the literal and broadest sense, regardless of era or realism. In other words, if the characters are wearing sandals and fighting with swords the movie is applicable).
I'm going to go back through this later when I have the time to actually read your comments, but here are a few initial thoughts:
1. I've heard of Atilla but never seen it. Didn't realize it starred Gerard Butler. I'll have to give it a look.
2. Black Death was too dark for me, especially with the very depressing ending.
3. I never did see Tristan and Isolde, but the director is underrated. He also made The Count of Monte Cristo, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Hatfields & McCoys mini-series for History Channel, and the little-known Jesus film Risen. I wish he worked more frequently.
4. I liked First Knight a lot when I was younger. I revisited it a few years ago and thought it was still okay but didn't hold up as well as I was hoping.
5. Someone mentioned the Odyssey mini-series to me recently and said it was good. Maybe I'll have to watch it at some point.
6. I just watched both The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur for the first time a few years ago. Good films. Hollywood just doesn't make movies like that anymore.
7. The Conan the Barbarian film from a few years ago was pretty shitty. Kind of surprised you liked it.
8. Season of the Witch was fun and is an underrated film. It's a shame it's held back by it's CGI-fest of a third act. I was amazed to see Claire Foy in a film like that.
9. If you're going to include a Robin Hood movie, I really think Kevin Costner's film is better than Russell Crowe's.
10. You have several films I haven't heard of. I'll have to look more deeply into those.
Responding to some of your comments:
2. "Black Death" is a dark medieval adventure that explores true faith vs. false faith; in other words, people actually being reconciled to God despite flaws and those who masquerade as believers, even to the point of fooling themselves. Osmund (the young monk) was never a believer. He may have had some positive qualities but he simply wasn't a believer and the clues are there from the very beginning. Although depicted as brutal witch-hunters, Ulrich & his team were RIGHT regarding their suspicions of the marsh village -- the people HAD renounced God and witchcraft WAS being practiced, albeit in a partially charlatan form. For more insights, see this thread: https://moviechat.org/tt1181791/Black-Death/58c81c412214d80b5cfbb0cf/Explaining-the-film (I think we discussed this previously; I'm just including it for others who might be reading this).
3. There's a lot of good stuff to glean from the tragedy in "Tristan + Isolde": Everyone wants someone to believe in them; never trust a proven scoundrel; humble confession, remorse & repentance; the natural desire for freedom and "true love," etc.
4. There's a profound line in an early scene in "First Knight": After Lancelot prevails in a swordfight with an intimidating man, the big lug asks him for advice on how to be as skilled a swordsman. Lancelot tells him that he needs a couple of obvious sword-fighting skills, to which the man confidently replies, "I can do that." Then Lancelot tells him the last quality: "...And you must not care whether you live or die." (Whoa)
7. In my commentary I point out the negatives & positives in the newer "Conan the Barbarian." It needed more depth, epic-ness and uniqueness to pull it out of its "blockbuster" mediocrity, but it gets a lot of things right, like Momoa as Conan and the authentic look/feel of the Hyborian Age. Not to mention it pulsates with energy.
8. It was a long journey in "Seasons of the Witch" and quasi-realistic, so I didn't mind the over-the-top cartoony climax.
9. It's a tough call between those three versions of Robin Hood (Flynn/Costner/Crowe). They're all so different in approach.
That's some interesting insight on Black Death. Pretty thoughtful. But I'd disagree that you can think you're a believer but really be an unbeliever. If that's the case, then how can any believer actually trust in their own belief, their own conversion, and consequently their own relationship with God? If you can think you believe when you actually don't, then anyone who thinks they're a Christian has to doubt their own belief.
I don't really think of belief as a light switch -- on or off. For many, it's more of a dimmer switch. Even the Bible talks about believers who have doubts. The question then is: Do you believe ENOUGH to make the decision to follow?
That aside, I do think you've made some interesting observations on the film and have arrived at a compelling interpretation. Kind of like with Signs and the aliens-are-demons theory, I'd be interested in hearing what the director thinks of this.
Just because someone believes something doesn't mean it's true. Paul said in the bible: "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him" (Titus 1:6). The majority of felons in prison insist they're innocent. It's called self-delusion. A good scriptural example is the Pharisees who believed they were children of God, but Christ told them point blank they were children of the devil (John 8:41-44).
Consider Matthew 7:15-23 where we observe the deluded people who will stand before the Lord at the Judgment Seat saying "Lord, Lord" (aka confessing Christ as Lord) and boasting of their great works, like prophesying, exorcizing demons and doing miracles. Messiah doesn't even deny that they did these religious works, but says "I never knew you; away from me you evildoers" (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A15-23&version=NIV).
For these people to stand before the Lord and boast of their works, they obviously believed they were saved and clearly had great confidence to this effect. But they have a rude awakening because: (1) They didn't really walk with the Lord and (2) they practiced evil as a lifestyle with no care of humble penitence. The greatest sin is arrogance and boasting is a dead giveaway. The worst form is religious arrogance (bearing in mind that Christ's greatest enemies in the 1st Century were religious leaders, like the Pharisees & Teachers of the Law, who knew the scriptures like the backs of their hands). That's what Osmund was guilty of in the movie -- religious arrogance and the corresponding self-delusion.
Remember what Messiah said: "You will know them by their fruit" regardless of what they say/believe or even religious works. And what kind of fruit did Osmund go on to produce by the end of the movie? Certainly not good fruit! Those were the deeds his faith produced, which proved him to be false.
That's one of the reasons I value "Black Death" so much -- it's all about faith and the testing of that faith to find out if a person is genuinely a believer or not.
I still say that if you can somehow think you believe in Christ but not actually do so then every believer must continually doubt if they actually are in fact a true believer. And that doesn't sound like the "peace that surpasses understanding" that was promised and it would make no sense for John to "write these things so that you may know that you have eternal life."
In any case, I appreciate your thoughts. Maybe one day I'll go back and watch the movie with all of that in mind.
I will give you this: You at least come with an interesting perspective and take the time to present your thoughts in a logical, thought-out way. I still remember an interesting conversation we had on The Mothman Prophecies.
It was good, but to me, I would say that certain something that pulled it down was that it was like a cartoon version of "The Illiad". Having read the book this movie got a certain feeling right, but it was too much like a cartoon or comic book.
shareIt's weird how they tried to make it "real" by removing the gods from the story, but the story is so fantastical that it didn't really feel any more realistic. Maybe a touch more, but not a lot.
shareThey had the god references in the story ... which is as it should be since they Greek gods are fictional. Also they completely changed the ending. Still, it was not a bad movie. After seeing the movie I went and bought the DVD.
shareYeah, but the gods are in the story; they're part of the Iliad. They could choose to tell the story however they wanted - godless or god...ed?
I was just saying it was weird how they wanted to remove the supernatural and the fantastic from the story, but because it felt like a bit of a cartoon at times (as you said) and emphasized the larger-than-life characters like Achilles, it wound up being a bit fantastic anyway.
You're right, but that is how the Illiad was written ... but not in a supernatural way. They were always sacrificing and talking about the gods, but I don't recall any supernatural appearances or demonstrations in the book. It I read it on a long train trip into Mexico in the early 1970's ... so it's been a while.
shareI was reading it last year. There are absolutely direct interventions by the gods, who are active participants in the combat. One of the Greek soldiers is revived from a would've-been-fatal wound by a goddess and told he may fight anybody with impunity, except for that guy, because that guy is Ares. Paris isn't saved by Hector when bested by Menelaus, but by Aphrodite who teleports him back to his chambers with Helen.
"With this [Menelaus] flew at Alexandrus, caught him by the horsehair plume of his helmet, and began dragging him towards the Achaeans. The strap of the helmet that went under his chin was choking him, and Menelaus would have dragged him off to his own great glory had not Jove’s daughter Venus been quick to mark and to break the strap of oxhide, so that the empty helmet came away in his hand. This he flung to his comrades among the Achaeans, and was again springing upon Alexandrus to run him through with a spear, but Venus snatched him up in a moment (as a god can do), hid him under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own bedchamber."
For some reason Paris is often referred to as Alexandrus.
Also, that's a bad translation, but it demonstrates the direct interference of the gods in the original epic.
> There are absolutely direct interventions by the gods, who are active participants in the combat.
I read that as more figurative, the same way a high-school football team has their team prayer and believes God intervenes in their stupid football game.
> had not Jove’s daughter Venus been quick to mark and to break the strap of oxhide
A strap broke .... that is just talk like religious people do. ;-)
Paris's noble birth was betrayed by his outstanding beauty and intelligence. While still a child, he routed a gang of cattle-thieves and restored the animals they had stolen to the herd, thereby earning the surname Alexander ("protector of men").
Okay, some of it could be figurative. The strap break could be credited to a god when it was just chance or rotten leather. "Such-and-such a person is Ares," might really mean, "He might as well be the god of war; look how he fights!"
But "cured from a mortal wound apropos of nothing," and "teleported off the battlefield" are starting to push it. At some point it's clearly supposed to be literal deity involvement.
I do know what you mean, insofar as the Iliad is kinda mythology and kinda history, as it details a real war, but embellishes it with gods.
The moviemakers clearly wanted to explore the "real" war. Which is why I find some of the way its presented as ironic, because Achilles is given godlike power despite this being a world void of gods and goddesses. The film doesn't show us anything that can't be explained, but it's still larger-than-life and doesn't appear to present us with history, either.
> At some point it's clearly supposed to be literal deity involvement.
I think I have to disagree with you here. It may be out there to capture the dim-witted, but I don't think anyone takes that seriously, at least for an historic movie - because we know there actually was a Troy, and a war. There are no Greek Gods, but the gods do figure prominently in human history. In Homer's epic yarn of course he poeticized it, but I think even then people knew the gods did not intervene in the events of humans. Maybe I am not hearing the exact point you are making.
My theory is that in these times war was mostly about killing off and controlling young men to keep the population down, so they needed some outrageous world view with gods and heroes and to glamorize war and fighting.
There were actually pretty close to 1000 ships launched ... I saw the numbers somewhere on the Internet ... nine hundred and something. If you think about that and what went on all throughout European history one starts to realize that all during what we think of as history the environment was being pillaged for trees. Whole countries were denuded of trees to form ships, battlements, forts, houses, even with the population after war.
The End of the Megamachine by Fabian Scheidler is a pretty good book that talks about this and the how and the way of how history worked itself out.
The movie was pretty good, but was cartoony, and the ending was a total fairy tale. Hollywood just cannot tell stories like this, because in normal day to day life we do not want to be confronted with our bloodthirsty past.
I think you're not taking into account that, at that time, they believed in those gods. There were priests who sacrificed. They told the stories of the gods overthrowing the titans. They worshipped them and held festivals.
Now, while I do think Homer was embellishing a historic account, there is a question of whether or not - within the story - the gods might be literally there. In this case, I would say, yes, they are intended to be participants.
Forrest Gump did not invent the smiley face logo. He didn't serve in Vietnam. He didn't meet the president or Elvis. But the movie isn't a metaphor for human achievement; it's about Forrest Gump.
I do understand what you're saying. I think it's possible to read The Iliad as a purely historical account that has been embellished with gods. But I think it's plausible that those embellishments were "grounded" in the beliefs of Homer and his audiences. In other words, Homer might not have thought Ares was literally on the battlefield, but he easily could assume Ares literally was possessing soldiers. He might have thought Aphrodite or Athena literally healed men from death and wrote that down.
At any rate, in the passage I quoted, Paris goes from being on the battlefield to - in the next *instant* being in his chambers. That is divine intervention, unless I'm missing something.
See, I would have said that Hollywood doesn't tell stories like this because they don't seem to want to embrace the fantastic or the grand. Irony is king, so a straightforward epic becomes a risky bit of business - a potential target for snide mockery. So they pull back. That's why Troy is filled with anti-deity sentiment, making a point of its dearth of gods, literal or figurative, and as a result it kind of splits the difference. It wants the epic mytho-historic work on-screen, but it wants to be perceived as some kind of "gritty, realistic, true account". It does neither, and that is - for me - the big shortcoming.
It's a good movie and certainly one of the better entries in a genre that I feel is not re-visited often enough these days.
Troy may even be the best sword-and-sandals movie of the 21st century. The only one that I can think of that can challenge is it Gladiator. This isn't to say it's the only good one, but most aren't on its level.
I'd love to see a revival of the big epics that once were in vogue, like Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Spartacus, Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia. If studios are too anxious about releasing films that long into theaters then they should make them as streaming originals.
"I'd love to see a revival of the big epics that once were in vogue, like Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Spartacus"
all three of these were revived in just the last 10 years or so
See my last post to Ace_Spade.
First, the Ben-Hur film that came out recently was not really a big epic like the Heston film. It was an hour and 15 minutes shorter and only slightly longer than a regular film.
Spartacus was a USA network mini-series and makes me wonder at the production values. I still want to check it out but I'm thinking more like a big theatrical movie or at least HBO.
I remember reading something about The Ten Commandments but it looked very cheap, like a Hallmark movie. You'll remember the original was a grand production with a huge budget and lots of fanfare.
THESE TYPE OF FILMS TEND TO BORE ME...THIS ONE BORED ME TEARS.
shareThis movie was a mess. You can't tell this story without the interventions of the greek gods.
This is not the "true" story of the many wars between Troy and Greece. This is the Iliad, and the Iliad makes absolutely no sense without the machinations of the gods.
Yeah it's a solid sword-n-sandal movie.
shareIt's number one yet again!
share