With the July 2026 arrival of Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s Odyssey in multiplexes, does it come as a coincidence that Arrow slotted another film based on the works of that author for their August 2026 schedule? Of course not, and this brings 2004’s Troy into my Blu-ray player.

Adapted from Homer’s Idiad, Helen of Troy (Diane Kruger) leaves her husband King Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson) to be with Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom). This doesn’t sit well with the leader so this launches the Trojan War between the two sides.

The Spartans send Achilles (Brad Pitt) to lead them. He mainly faces off against Prince of Troy Hector (Eric Bana) as the two sides vie for dominance.

Thanks to 2000’s Best Picture-winning Gladiator, the 2000s saw a resurgence of this sort of historical epic. I also think the 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings trilogy contributed to audience interest in this kind of tale.

Of course, those didn’t deal with any specific era in history. Nonetheless, they tended toward a feeling of an older time and they featured a period prior to the use of firearms.

That Rings tone comes through very clearly in Troy’s battle sequences. These owe a big debt to those of the Rings flicks, as were it not for the absence of orcs and other creatures as combatants, the Troy fights would look like they came straight from Peter Jackson’s hit trilogy.

The Rings feel gets a boost from the casting of Troy, as we find Middle-earth veterans Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean here. Heck, Bloom even plays another archer!

Unfortunately, the battle sequences - and the movie in general - never become nearly as involving as the Rings flicks. For an epic about warriors Troy tends to be an awfully chatty experience.

The first act of the film drags as we learn about all the situations and scenarios. The exposition clearly seems necessary, but director Wolfgang Petersen could have portrayed it in a livelier manner.

In fact, the opening text tells us much of what we need to know. The rest of the yammering does little more than drive home the same points.

Troy aspires to a larger-than-life attitude but it fails to feel grand and all encompassing. The participants endlessly blather about their places in history and how they want to be remembered.

I suppose this aims to educate us about their attitudes, but instead it feels more like an attempt to convince us we should care. Obviously the stories and characters were remembered for centuries - we’re watching the movie, aren’t we? Do we need endless discussions of the characters’ thoughts about their places in history?

No, and these drag a slow-moving movie even further. All this gabbing might be more acceptable if the action lives up to expectations, but it doesn’t.

A couple of the fights work reasonably well, but most of them just feel like outtakes from Rings. Petersen stages them with too many cuts and in a jerky manner that makes them moderately annoying to watch.

This becomes especially irritating during a climactic battle between Achilles and Hector. Petersen cuts very rapidly, probably to allow Pitt and Bana to do as much of the fighting themselves as possible.

Longer shots would likely have required the use of doubles, whereas shorter bursts could be executed with the real actors. That’s a nice idea, but since it requires the action to pop up in short, choppy bits, it becomes aggravating to watch.

Troy boasts a solid cast, but none of them make much of an impression. In general, I like Pitt very much, but he lacks the right personality for a role like Achilles.

Pitt simply brings the wrong tone for this sort of classical enterprise, as he works much better as more modern and American characters. It doesn’t help that his vague attempt at a British accent fails miserably. The buffed-up Pitt looks great in the role, but his usually solid acting chops fail him.

With all sorts of intrigue, action and subplots, Troy had the potential to be a thrilling epic. Instead, it ends up as an excessively long, overly chatty bore.

The film rambles from one scene to another without much useful material to connect it. Chalk up Troy as a dull disappointment.

Troy appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Though largely positive, the Dolby Vision image showed some warts from the source.

Sharpness generally worked well but came with those warts. While most of the flick brought good delineation, wider shots and 22-year-old CG effects tended to seem a bit soft.

I saw no issues with jagged edges or moiré effects, and edge haloes remained absent. No print flaws materialized and grain seemed appropriate.

Colors went with an arid mix of orange and amber much of the time, and we found a fair amount of teal as well. The hues lacked imagination and the disc made them look decent but not great, without as much kick from HDR as I might expect.

Blacks felt dark and deep, while low-light shots offered appealing clarity. HDR added punch to whites and contrast. While much of the film looked solid, the 4K UHD didn't quite dazzle.

As for the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Troy, it seemed good but oddly "detached". This meant an active soundfield but one without terrific integration.

With a lot of action, the soundscape managed to use the speakers as a constant companion. However, the elements failed to blen together as well as I might anticipate and felt somewhat isolated within the specific channels.

Audio quality also brought some inconsistencies. Dialogue always came across as natural and suffered from no edginess or problems with intelligibility.

While music and effects seemed acceptably well-delivered, those elements tended to feel more subdued and without the power I'd anticipated. This all led to a generally positive soundtrack but not one that impressed.

How did the 4K UHD compare to the simultaneously released Arrow Blu-ray? Logically I'd expect both to offer identical audio since they both brought DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks.

However, the sound on the Blu-ray came across as noticeably better integrated andmore dynamic. I can't explain why the two appeared different but they did.

As for the UHD's Dolby Vision image, it also felt like a downgrade from the Blu-ray. Some of that occurred because the UHD's superior resolution made the aforementioned softness from the source more obvious.

However, it made less sense that the UHD's colors looked less dynamic, as even with HDR, the UHD's hues lacked the same punch. While the UHD seemed perfectly acceptable, it became a rare case where the Blu-ray offered the superior option in terms of both picture and audio.

When compared with the movie's original 2007 Blu-ray, comparisons became more mixed. That one's LPCM 5.1 audio came across as stronger than the UHD's DTS-HD MA 5.1.

However, the UHD's visuals became a clear upgrade over the dated image found on that nearly 20-year-old BD. While the 2026 BD became the best of the bunch, I'd take the 4K UHD over the 2007 Blu-ray because the latter's picture quality seemed so iffy.

This Arrow set includes both the film’s theatrical version (2:42:49) and a Director’s Cut (3:16:04) on separate discs. How do the two differ?

My movie discussion earlier examined the theatrical version of Troy. Given I didn’t care for that one, the fact the Director’s Cut almost 34 minutes to the original’s already-long running time sounds like a dangerous decision, as making an already slow movie longer should be a disaster.

Not always, as sometimes extensions make a movie richer and more dynamic. Does that happen with Troy?

Not in my opinion. That said, I will admit some surprise that the extra running time doesn’t slow down the film to a substantial degree, and I could argue that the footage helps flesh out some of the secondary characters.

However, this additional breadth doesn’t fix the flick’s problems, as we still find too much talk and not a lot of meat to make the enterprise interesting. While I don’t think the Director’s Cut comes across as worse than the theatrical edition, I also don’t feel it improves upon the shorter version.

No extras appear on the theatrical platter and only one shows up on the DC disc: a two-minute, 31-second Introduction with director Wolfgang Petersen where he tells us a little about why he decided to create the extended edition and offers a preview of what to expect. It’s a decent but inessential opening to the longer version of the film.

Everything else appears on Disc Three, where we mainly get video programs. Troy In Focus delivers a 23-minute, eight-second piece that includes remarks from Petersen as he gives us thoughts about his interest in the story and some changes made for the Director’s Cut, working with Pitt, some casting and character notes, and locations and sets.

“Focus” doesn’t substitute for an audio commentary, but it provides a decent showcase for the director’s observations. Its biggest problem comes from its structure, as instead of a single running show, it compiles 11 short clips.

That’s not a major issue, though, and the collection of featurettes gives us a reasonable number of nice insights, especially in the way it illustrates changes for the Director’s Cut.

In the Thick of Battle brings a 17-minute, 14-second program. We hear from Petersen, second unit director/stunt coordinator Simon Crane, weapons designer Simon Atherton, chief prosthetics makeup Daniel Parker, special effects supervisor Joss Williams, sword master Richard Ryan, military technical advisor Richard Smedley, and actors Eric Bana and Brad Pitt.

They discuss the various weapons used in the flick and their construction, the depiction of gory violence, the training of extras to play soldiers, location challenges, and the specifics of some fights.

The program offers a surprisingly rich look at its subjects. It touches on a nice mix of topics and gets into them with just enough detail to become useful. There’s very little fluff on display in this tight and brisk piece.

Next we locate From Ruins to Reality. It goes for 14 minutes, two seconds and features remarks from Petersen, Bana, Pitt, Williams, writer David Benioff, British Columbia Department of Greek/Roman Antiquities Lesley Fitton, producer Diana Rathbun, location manager Peter Novak, supervising art director Les Tomkins, production designer Nigel Phelps, supervising art director Kevin Phipps, and actors Diane Kruger and Peter O’Toole.

They discuss exploration of the historical Troy and research for the film, the choice of locations, the design and construction of the sets, and various details of the shoot.

For the most part, my comments about “Battle” apply to “Ruins”. This show also goes through some intriguing material in a reasonably evocative and distinctive manner.

It isn’t quite as good simply because it engages in more puffy talk than I’d like and it occasionally comes across as self-congratulatory. However, the positives outweigh the minor negatives to make this a good program.

After this comes Troy: An Effects Odyssey. It takes 10 minutes, 54 seconds to give us notes from Petersen, Crane, Benioff, supervising sound editor Wylie Stateman, and visual effects supervisor Nick Davis.

They discuss the creation of a digital armada of boats, camera techniques, building digital soldiers and executing battles, and audio elements. Don’t expect anything to differ from the prior two featurettes. “Effects” presents a tight exploration of the various issues and gives us a short but informative take on the material.

Attacking Troy lasts 15 minutes, 12 seconds and features Petersen, Benioff, Fitton, Kruger, Bana, Crane, horsemaster Jordi Casares, and actor Orlando Bloom.

This piece looks at the story and its influences, changes made from the source material, character and performance issues, fight scenes, horse riding and stunts.

“Attacking” takes a somewhat scattershot approach to the film’s creation and doesn’t settle on the various subjects well. It flits about without much focus, so it doesn’t dig into the areas particularly well. While we get a smattering of decent notes, “Attacking” doesn’t prove very satisfying.

With Gallery of the Gods, we get a compilation that spans a total of 10 minutes, 49 seconds and gives us information about many of the Greek deities referred to in Troy. Though it rushes through the various characters, it nonetheless becomes a decent little overview.

Not found on the prior Blu-ray, In Movie Experience offers a feature found on many Warner releases in the early BD era. The Arrow set refers to it as an archival piece but I can’t find any evidence any other Blu-ray included it.

Anyway, this picture-in-picture program mixes behind the scenes footage, production art, and interview snippets. We hear from Petersen, Benioff, Bana, Pitt, Bloom, Kruger, Atherton, Fitton, Phelps, Williams, Crane, Smedley, Ryan, Casares, O'Toole, Phipps, Parker, costume designer Bob Ringwood, University of Tuebingen's Dr. Manfred Korfmann, and actors Brendan Gleeson, Brian Cox, Tyler Mane, Saffron Burrows, Garrett Hedlund, Rose Byrne, and Sean Bean.

The comments cover the source and its adaptation, story and characters, Petersen's approach to the material, costumes, props and attempts at accuracy, cast and performances, sets and locations, various effects, stunts and action.

A fair amount of good information appears here, even if we get more than a little redundant material after the prior programs. Unfortunately, we get enormous gaps between comments so this becomes a frustrating way to learn about the film.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we end with Image Galleries that cover “Stills” (270 frames), “Behind the Scenes” (63) and “Promotional Material” (14). None stand out as memorable, though "Behind the Scenes" fares best.

Troy turns a remarkable series of battles into bland melodrama. The interpersonal elements don’t coalesce and the fight scenes fail to take flight. The 4K UHD brings good but not great visuals, an oddly tame soundtrack and a fine array of supplements. Fans of the movie should opt for the Arrow Blu-ray version, as to my surprise, it provides better picture and audio than this 4K UHD.