Troy – Directors Cut (HD-DVD)
Picture:
A- Sound: B+ Extras: B Film: D
After the
success of Ridley Scott’s epic film Gladiator
in the summer of 2000 something happened in Hollywood… people thought they knew
how to make epics again and a trend of really horrible epic films emerged and
continue to do so in record numbers. It
wasn’t just Gladiator that set this
trend into motion, but also the combination of that, plus the release of Lord of the Rings, which ran near or
beyond the 3-hour mark in its runtime, which gave hope again that people could
sit for that amount of time in a theater.
So a resurgence of the Hollywood Epic began and audiences everywhere
were tortured by these horrible renditions, 2004’s Troy is no exception. Of
course it wasn’t the only bomb that same year as Oliver Stone’s Alexander fell flat on its face as
well, not just in numbers, but it was a critical failure as well. What a shame.
The shame
with Troy is that I wanted to like
this film; I mean I really wanted to enjoy it and was hopeful that it would
deliver. I remember hearing early on
that the film was going to finally get made and that Wolfgang Peterson’s name
was attached to the project, which made me hopeful to some extent. Then some other big names became attached
like Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Brian Cox, and I became especially
intrigued when names like Julie Christie and Peter O’ Toole were attached as
well. This now seemed like a film that
would do well and had the cast to certainly deliver just that.
So what
happened?
I only
wish I knew! Unfortunately the film
suffers in some seriously significant ways.
I am not a history scholar nor do I have an extensive amount of Greek
mythology under my belt, but from what I understand there were some huge
mistakes made in the film in accordance with the poem by Homer and some
inaccuracies that really didn’t help the continuity of the film, but even
looking past those little items the film is still dreadful in just about every
sense of the word. There are several
scenes that demonstrate just how poor this film is, and the expressions on
Peter O’ Toole’s face throughout the film pretty much sum up the boredom that
most will feel while watching this film.
There are
some fairly impressive scenes that do manage to capture some of the scope of
the battles and such, but they are hit and miss at times and for the most part
only get your attention for a little while before going back into a
snooze-fest. Peter O’ Toole is not the
only one who looks bored throughout the film and there are about 30 close-ups
of him and his deep blue eyes in the film that after awhile just become comical
with how silly this film really is and it’s almost like it never takes itself
seriously. It certainly reminded me of
the hokie Bible epics of the 1950’s and 1960’s where they thought that if they
dressed up in costume and attempted an accent (and sometimes they didn’t even
attempt) that suddenly our disbelief was lifted and we were transcended back in
time, but those never worked and neither does this film, not even close. It’s more ambitious than just about any film
of recent, maybe with the exception of Alexander,
which suffers from many of the same problems.
Instead of popularizing Greek mythology, these films have trivialized it
and brought it to a new low.
You can
read more about the film elsewhere on this site in the theatrical edition
HD-DVD released by Warner one year prior to this release.
This
HD-DVD is the “director’s cut”, which most will immediately ask, “Does this cut
of the film work better?” Short answer:
yes. Long answer: not really. The directors cut of the film includes about
30-minutes worth of material, which puts the film at 196-minutes. There are a few more scenes of graphic
violence; a bit more nudity, and also some further character development, but
even these extra minutes cannot keep this train from wrecking. Director Wolfgang Peterson is certainly
ambitious with his Hollywood projects, but more often than not this inevitably
derails his films. In many respects he
is still making films that are overshadowed by his claim to fame, Das Boot. His lowest point aside from Troy would have
to be his remake of the Poseidon
Adventure, simply called Poseidon,
which makes me wonder how he still gets money to make films.
There is
something quite interesting though about the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s
Cut HD-DVD’s and I rented the Theatrical Cut to do an A/B comparison just to
see if there were differences in the picture or sound department. Both transfers are 2.40 X 1 anamorphic 1080p,
but they are far from equal. The first
major difference that I noticed with the directors cut is a bit more sharpness
overall and the detail seemed far more natural and you could see better
definition overall. The directors cut HD-DVD seems a bit brighter, more
refined, with better color saturation and contrast. The theatrical cut HD-DVD is darker; less
saturated, and has less definition and is not nearly as sharp overall. It’s amazing how much difference there could
be in these two transfers, which could perhaps be due to advancements in the
technology over the past year, and if that is any indication of how things are
improving, it’s a great sign!
Audio is
not nearly as different and in fact the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on both HD-DVD discs
is nearly identical, if not exact. It
did seem though that the directors cut had a bit more punch and didn’t seem to
have near the compression overall with the dialogue coming through the mix a
bit smoother. The mix in general is good,
if not really good at times, but the material lends itself quite well for a
solid mix with lots of fight sequences and the musical score sweeps around a
bit as well. The films failure surely
doesn’t rest in the sound design of the film as it’s constantly engaging and
attempt to make the material work as best as it can, but it’s an uphill battle
to say the least.
Aside
from this being the director’s cut there is also a video introduction by
Wolfgang Peterson and the same features that were on the previous theatrical
cut HD-DVD, plus some new featurettes, but does not have the Warner’s In-Movie
Experience, which was on the theatrical cut HD-DVD. For a look at that HD-DVD, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4306/Troy+(HD-DVD)
- Nate Goss
