Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Gals that make the world go round..

.. and one of them was Helen of Troy (previous to her fled to Troy she was also known as the Helen of Sparta).

Note: If you've not seen the movie Troy yet, stop reading now, cause this post is a spoiler.

Knowing how I truly despise sad-ending movies, I can't believe I was game enough to go watch Troy, that film with Eric Bana (played the part of Hector, eldest son of Priam - king of Troy), Brad Pitt (Achilles - lord of the Myrmidons, the greatest band of Greek soldiers), Sean Bean (Odysseus - king of Ithaca), Orlando Bloom (Paris - gosh, what a wussy name, what a wussy character - I'll call him Wussy Paris from now on, as far as this posting goes) etc.

Notice that all the big names mentioned above are males, cause that's what the movie is about - males who loved, be it women, be it power, be it glory; and the war that they see as a solution to gain what they love.

What's the name of the actress who played the part of Helen (of Troy, previously Sparta)? You know what, I don't remember. Cause to me Saffron Burrows who played the part of Hector's wife, Andromache, was more memorable (then again, it's could also be so cause I saw Burrows in that almost B-grade ikan yu gone berserk flick called Deep End, which spooked me off seawater for months).

So Wussy Paris's love for Helen got two nations into a war (yeah, I'm gonna follow suit and mention that it is the fault of "Helen, whose beauty launched a thousand ships" too - hey, that's quite a feat, though I'm not sure good or bad). So wussy was Paris that his brother had to finish the challenge he issued to his lover's husband.

Potrayed by Brian Cox, Agamemnon's love (greed, rather) for power led him to sacrifice his great Greek army into battle over "his brother Menelaus's honor". A husband's pride - yep, what a good excuse to go to war - well they did say that Troy is a big whacked tragedy.

Achilles's love for glory got him to go to war for a beastly king - ending up killing the great Trojan warrior Hector over his nephew Patroclus' (Garret Hedlund - I remembered cause he's kinda cute) accidental death. To top it all, because he wanted o save his "love" Briseis (Rose Byrne), he perished under Wussy Paris' arrows to his back and heel!

Man, I just can't get over how wussy Wussy Paris is. In fact, I didn't really mind that Troy is a sad-ended movie. I minded more because the character Paris is so bloody wussy. W-U-S-S-Y.

It's a downward transition for Bloom, who played super-macho-archer-swings-270degrees-up-a-horsie elf in Lord of the Rings trilogy and daredevil son of a pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

But there's lots of cool scenes aboard Troy: the part when Priam entered the tent of Achilles undercover, the part when Eric Bana and Brad Pitt got into a one-on-one battle, the part when the Myrmidons took over the beach of Troy (really cool!), the part when Agamemnon called for his great warrior but Achilles was still in bed..

The part I hated most also happened to be Bana-Pitt showdown, cause you can't blame any of them for engaging in that battle. They could have conquered the world together, but thanks to Helen they were put into conflict by the ties they served.

Ok, OK - go see the movie, it'll be worth your RM10... Don't cry, it's just a movie... though it was inspired by the Iliad, and there must be some truth in Homer's words..

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