Troy
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: May 14, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
21
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
In a league with Hollywood's top historical epics, ancient or otherwise. It's stunningly handsome film, with an equally stunning cast and engrossing story. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
An exhilarating piece of epic filmmaking that it pulls you in, sweeps you up and works very much as its own thing. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Corliss
In this vigorous, stalwart epic, they blend martial breadth and emotional intimacy, honor and obsession, romance and machismo to show the glamour and folly of war. Read full review
80
NewsweekJeff Giles
Troy is a fun, energizing piece of summer entertainment, even if it doesn't have the depth or the sustained intensity of "Gladiator." Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Troy lacks the focus of Gladiator, not to mention that Oscar winner's scrappy wit. But why kick a gift horse when you're in summer-movie heaven? Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Entertainingly epic eye candy. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
In sum, this is hardly an "Iliad" adaptation for the ages. But if you're hankering for sand, sandals, and swordplay, this could be the movie for you. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
When the film focuses on the Trojans, it's splendid. But when Troy attempts to sort out the competing agendas of the Greeks, it drags. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A "Ben-Hur"-size epic with beefcake, beauty, outsize heroes, flashy duels and epic battles. There are breathtaking vistas, taut political intrigues, dangerous romantic liaisons and one of the greatest wardrobes ever assembled for a costume drama. Read full review
75
PremiereSara Brady
Wolfgang Petersen's Troy recalls an age when Hollywood not only gambled on but flourished with grandiose epics and casts of thousands, and brings megawatt star power to what is, at root, a brilliantly told story. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
All Hollywood and no Homer, but within its limits, it's a vigorous, entertaining movie. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The movie is successful -- harsh, serious, and both exhilarating and tragic, the right tonal combination for Homer. [17 May 2004, p. 107]
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
That's the only way to enjoy Wolfgang Petersen's nearly three-hour epic: as a Pitt vehicle. In a role that requires larger-than-life dimensions, he's pretty terrific. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Far from great, but much farther from awful, Troy offers several popcorn buckets' worth of good old-fashioned time at the movies. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
When a spectacular film rests on at least a minimal armature of character and cogent action, as Troy does, we can just sink back and enjoy. What we enjoy is the sovereignty over time and place and the force of gravity that film has given to the world. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
For a movie whose characters are so preoccupied with immortality, Troy is curiously forgettable. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
This handsome and occasionally exciting movie flounders because it confuses Tinseltown glamour with legendary heroism and beauty. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
There are times when Troy is stirring and engaging. However, at least as often, it is flat. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Despite a sensationally attractive cast and an array of well-staged combat scenes presented on a vast scale, Wolfgang Petersen's highly telescoped rendition of the Trojan War lurches ahead in fits and starts for much of its hefty running time, to OK effect. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Except for a few brilliant flashes, mostly from Peter O'Toole as Hector’s father, the Trojans' magisterially woebegone King Priam, Troy is a fairly routine action picture with an advanced case of grandeuritis. Read full review
60
EmpireWill Lawrence
Bruising battles and some stirring performances make Troy enjoyable, if rather long. But if audiences can forgive the camp, they'll still struggle to empathise with the characters. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDana Stevens
For what it is -- a big, expensive, occasionally campy action movie full of well-known actors speaking in well-rounded accents -- Troy is not bad. It has the blocky, earnest integrity of a classic comic book, and it labors to respect the strangeness and grandeur of its classical sources. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
Homer would be hard-pressed to find any remaining shred of "The Iliad" in this over-the-top entertainment. It has a lot of loud passion but not much poetry, and that's appropriate for a movie that could well be subtitled My Big Fat Greek Bloodletting. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It has plenty of visual sweep, fine action sequences, and, thanks especially to Brad Pitt (as Achilles) and Peter O'Toole (as King Priam), a deeper sense of character than one might expect from a sword-and-sandal epic. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Isn’t a bad film, simply an unspectacular one, which might be a more damaging statement. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianKaren Karbo
In the end, the battle scenes are elegant and compelling and there are some fine moments when O'Toole, as Priam, summons his inner Lawrence of Arabia and makes us believe that we're actually watching a tragic altercation that brought down great men descended from gods. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
A protracted and uninvolving affair in which men battle over issues that audiences may struggle to find compelling, and no central figure emerges to take command of the film. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Hardly gay camp for nothing, sword-and-sandal epics cannot help but teeter on the brink of self-mockery, and Troy, for all its grim seriousness, embraces both the clichés and the beefcake. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The result is a pageant long but not deep, noisy but not stirring, expensive but not sumptuous. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
Often plays like what it is: a clunky toga-and-sandals picture, with Hollywood compromises abounding. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Even the dramatic heavy hitters, who include Cox, Gleeson, O'Toole and Julie Christie, as Achilles' mother, are powerless in the face of Pitt's yawning hollowness. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Given everything, it's no surprise that the verdict on the film has to be a split decision. Troy is a movie you believe in physically...Believing in Troy emotionally, however, presents a greater challenge. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
What do you get if you start with the first great narrative of Western civilization, then remove all the psychological complexity and profound characterization? Troy. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
At its intermittent best, Troy suggests a primitive pro-wrestling smackdown with epochal consequences. At its worst, it's a throwback to the ham-fisted sword-and-sandal international coproductions of the early 1960s: "The 300 Spartans" with better sets. Barely. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie cliches and demonstrates that we're getting tired of computer-generated armies. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
All costume and scant drama, the result is a curiously flat spectacle, neither offensive nor compelling. Read full review
50
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Wolfgang Petersen's popcorn epic doesn't fail exactly. It just takes on too much. Modern man is at something of a disadvantage-even aided by his trusty muse, the computer-when presuming to bring the stuff of gods, myths and timeless sacred texts to the big screen. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Petersen, a director who knows his way around a crane shot better than almost anyone, rallies his troops but can't ignite his actors, and the end result is the sound and fury of Homer undone. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Troy isn't so much a simplified retelling of "The Iliad" as a re-imagined version of it, told wholly without imagination. Read full review
38
New York PostJonathan Foreman
What really wrecks Wolfgang Petersen's Troy is some of the worst casting in recent Hollywood history: The lackluster ensemble hired by the director is overwhelmed by the generally impressive sets and crowd scenes, by the task of playing epic heroes and by David Benioff's rambling, tone-deaf screenplay "inspired by Homer's 'Iliad.'" Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Troy does look good--so good, in fact, that it takes a while to reveal itself as a thundering dud with much action but little personality, human drama, or brains. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
The thunderous clashes between armies of computer-generated Trojans and Mycenaeans, when they do arrive, feel decidedly un-epic, as though we were watching a child's toy-box war between plastic figurines. Which makes them perfectly in line with the rest of Petersen's artless approach. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
In Troy, and in overreaching, underachieving productions like it, digital imagery is fast becoming both a Trojan horse and Achilles' heel.
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