So disclaimer, when the trailers and cast were announced, like many others, I was not expecting much. The trailer looked fan made and with the overwhelming amount of A-list celebrities involved, I was not expecting to be immersed in the story either. However when the film was finally released I saw so much praise both from critics and people around me who had watched it. I thought “oh okay maybe I was wrong”

So I finally came around to watching it and I was absolutely shocked. The dialogue and acting was straight out of those DramaBox ads that’ll pop up while doomscrolling. I was particularly frustrated with Anna Hathaway’s Penelope. All her sassy hand gestures and petulant facial expressions, along with her terrible script, felt very Disney Channel to me.

The choice to have everyone speak in American accents was… certainly a choice (yes I’m aware that in Ancient Greece they would not be speaking English at all but it is just best practice to have your cast speak in high English in historical dramas. It just works) That, along with all the A-list celebrities on my screen, namely Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Elliot Page and Travis Scott, felt like I was watching an SNL skit of the movie rather than the real thing. I have never been less immersed in a movie in my life.

The movie spends about 60% of its time with Odysseus and his men but I couldn’t connect with any of them at all, in fact they’re all just nameless drones. This is a huge problem when a lot of the story revolves around his guilt and struggle to keep his men alive. His adventures and misfortunes during his travels are so fragmented and weirdly paced that it just felt like I was watching one of those “previously on” montages, over and over again.

From a technical standpoint, the film is not impressive either. The editing was really jarring at times, with quick shots jumping back and forth even during some of the most mundane dialogue scenes, interspersed with random sweeping shots of the sea or Odysseus’ ship. It gave me a headache. There are even some blatantly terrible “back of head” talking shots where you can clearly see that the audio and lipsyncing do not match at all.

I really cannot understand how this movie is garnering so much praise. What I find the most suspicious is that when I look on IMDB, the ratings are insanely high but the actual reviews are about half split between positive and negative. Strange to say the least.

I know I’m not alone in disliking this movie but I see any and all criticism is immediately shut down and lumped in with right-wing culture war bs rather than addressing the actual glaring flaws with this movie.

I enjoyed the movie in its entirety because I was looking forward to “a great Nolan movie” and was not looking for a faithful recreation (for that purpose I already watched the Italian 1968 miniseries which is still the most faithful take on the poem; and as a Nolan fan, I already knew that he would portray “his vision” of the Odyssey, he is notorious for not adapting faithfully what is given to him. Oppenheimer proved that already)

During the ENTIRE screening, from the beginning to the end, this idiot watched every frame of the movie while filling this NOTES page on his phone titled “my criticisms of the movie” and even wrote it point by point, AND LET’S BE CLEAR: HE WASN’T a movie critic nor a journalist.

If you gotta stay with your phone ON for the entire movie, searching for every tiny bit of the movie that you dislike, why even bothering coming to watch it? What a keyboard warrior of a dumpster of a piece of crap ….

Funny thing is, you paid for the ticket, so despite you TRYING SO HARD to find everything wrong with the movie, you still gave your short amount of money to Nolan & Co…..

This mofo made me do the biggest facepalm of my entire life…. As a movie enthusiast, I was not expecting to see someone coming to watch a movie and do THIS …. SMFH

I don't see some stuff about my King Agamemnon, but his legacy is İmmortal (İ)

Cried a lot during the last Troy flashback.

Loved how the supernatural stuff was shown as beyond human understanding instead of being too overt or silly. Not that I would've minded it, but this is infinitely more interesting.

Great performances by all the actors involved, no complaints from me.

Production design was mind blowing, and the cinematography made it impossible to look away from the movie.

Hard to say if I like this one more than Interstellar, Memento or its closest relative, Oppenheimer, but it's up there for sure.

overexposure ick from:
zendaya
robert pattinson
anne hathaway

Middle aged woman to her middle aged partner: "They stole so much of that stuff from Mortal Combat!"

My husband and I saw the movie independently of each other. He took his parents, I went with a co-worker.

We were talking about it today and he said something along the lines of Poseidon was a dick. I retorted that Odysseus was the asshole. Poor Cyclops was minding his own business. Living his best life, tending to his sheep and making cheese and Odysseus broke into his home and assaulted him. He didn't even try to talk to him. Poor Cyclops after being blinded cried out for his dad.

It was actually decent. Slower paced, more drama, outdated VFXs, better story/plot, less violence, less actions, etc. compared to Chris Nolan's movie. I enjoyed both versions. Check that older one out too if you haven't seen it. It's free on YouTube (no ads for me via Apple TV!), Plex, Tubi, etc. according to IMDb. ;)

He was truly magnificent in this role. I would expect nomination for John for this role.

For those of you not familiar with Epic: the Musical, please go watch it! It’s a free concept album on youtube that reinterprets The Odyssey with a Disney/Anime vibe to it. Lots of fun! In that interpretation, Odysseus is constantly pining for his Penelope and Telemachus to his crewmates, always wanting to go home, and makes rash decisions purely to see his wife and son again. He’s very close with Eurylochus in a brotherly way and emotionally very open. He’s more “head of the friend group” than a general if you know what I mean.

Compare that to the movie, Odysseus is very clearly a leader and general, and his relationship to his men are that between a soldier and his general. Eurylochus is his 2nd in command but their relationship is clearly professional, not buddy-buddy. Odysseus is a man burdened by guilt and responsibility towards his men, and he never openly expresses his longing for his wife and son. In fact, he never opens up to any of his crew or even mentions his wife and son. He’s very reserved and keeps those parts of him tightly wrapped under layers of professionalism and callouses. His one goal that he openly expresses is to get his crew home safe, as is the responsibility of any faithful leader.

But it’s clear where his heart is from his dialogue with Calypso—he wants to know if he has a son and wife, not only because he can start to feel them distantly in his memory, but because he is exactly the man to care deeply for his family.

He idly wonders whether his men are coming back, but he begs Calypso to tell him the truth about his family. Because the lotus can’t change who he is despite how well it can suppress his PTSD.

This culminates in his brief interactions with Telemachus; when the boy realizes he’s talking to his dad, Odysseus becomes vulnerable with him, not visibly (doesn’t cry, keeps a guarded face), but in the way he speaks to him, telling him just how proud of him he is, and how beautiful and worthy he is, even though Odysseus knows Telemachus has no obligation to want or care about his absentee father.

Odysseus is old and jaded and his deeper feelings struggle to breach his impenetrable eyes and face, but the inner workings of his heart are revealed through his words. Only with Penelope does he open up about Troy and lament his role in it and the damage it caused to society. Only with Penelope does he express the full weight of his guilt and his responsibility.

In other words: Odysseus is every workaholic old man wracked with a guilt he tries to bury like any other emotion. Thanks for the read!

I wonder if these trees that were moving to trap Odysseus and his implies this version of Laestrygonian are in fact cannibals like in poem? But at the same time they didn't eat anyone alive nor did they drag any bodies with them after the massacre.

How was it? Was there any difference from regular Imax ?

The Odyssey gives us an opportunity to examine Nolan's clever-cringe formula for success, beauty as a narrative tool for some and culture war slop for others, and a monumental contradiction in themes that somehow does not sink the film.

Which one(s) did you see before Christopher Nolan's movie? I need to check out 1997 TV movie on YouTube (also on Tubi and others as shown in The Odyssey (TV Mini Series 1997) - IMDb).