A Classical Night of Italian and Greek (Suburban Translation: Pizza and Troy)

Last night, T and I made the trek out to far away Dublin in the Tri-Valley. Our friends, who had purchased a large home there not too long ago, had arranged babysitting for their young son, so it was one of the few opportunities for them to enjoy an evening out as an "untethered" couple. We made it simple, pizza and a movie. This particular evening, we tore into a couple of piping hot Amici's pies and sunk into the plush theater seats at the local IMAX as we transported ourselves to the cinematic recreation of Homer's classic "The Iliad", i.e., Troy. Initially, I was a bit skeptical. For some inexplicable reason, actors with heavy Scottish brogues were cast in many of the important roles. Not very convincing as Greeks and Trojans in the least. In fact, the Scottish actor cast as King Agamemnon had played William Wallace's uncle, Argyle in the movie Braveheart; and the Scottish actor cast as Agamemnon's brother, the slighted King Menelaus of Sparta, had played Wallace's best friend in the very same Braveheart! Can't they find actors who look and sound more Hellenic? And don't get me started on Brad Pitt as Achilles, or Peter O'Toole as the Trojan King Priam. The only notable exception to the misguided casting of Troy was Eric Bana as the Trojan Prince Hector. He rocked! Then there were the battle scenes. Many of them were too reminiscent of prior war movies including scenes that were derivative of Braveheart, Gladiator, The Patriot, ad infinitem.; this includes the bloody beachfront invasion by the Greeks of the sandy Trojan shore which was eerily similar to the Omaha Beach D-Day invasion segment in Saving Private Ryan. Fortunately for all parties involved, the movie was saved by the drama inherent in the underlying Iliad narrative. Cinematic distractions aside, the script stayed true to the spirit of the Homer epic and because of that, I actually enjoyed the movie overall by the time the credits began rolling. Look forward to a sequel, a movie version of Homer's "The Odyssey"... just please don't recast Sean Bean as Odysseus.