The Odyssey was SO. GOOD. Every dudebro out there bitching about the "historical inaccuracy" is just one of those sheep who read a single annoyed blog post and decided to jump on the hater bandwagon. Yes, even the ones who have seen the movie by now. I'm not a True Historian™️, but I took two classes in ancient art where we had extensive units on ancient Greece studying the real statues, pottery, carvings, etc. I also took two Classics classes where I read a total of 14 unique ancient Greek and Roman plays, including the Stanley Lombardo translation of both The Iliad and The Odyssey. So my opinions have some formal education behind them.
And you know what? With the educational background I have, I don't know exactly what ancient Greek clothing or armor looked like. Neither, I can only assume, do any of the thousands of dudebros on the internet whining about the costumes in the film. Have these guys studied ancient frescoes, statues, and bits of armor? Have they read the original ancient Greek texts and seen the untranslated, unmodernized, unfiltered descriptions of armor or clothing? I can almost 100% guarantee that they haven't. So they can stfu about the armor. Agamemnon's gigantic black metal armor with the little spine going down the back of the neck looked fucking SICK, okay. I don't really care that it's nothing like what a real ancient Greek warrior king would have worn. Partially because this is a modern retelling/retranslation of the story, and Nolan and his creative team have every right to make the costumes look how they like. And partially because the Odyssey is FICTION. MYTH. Odysseus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Sinod, et al were NEVER REAL PEOPLE. The idiots out there on the internet bitching about historical accuracy sound about as intelligent as someone in 1,000 years complaining about how a modern retelling of Marvel made Iron Man's suit a different color and shape. Who the hell cares, asshole?
Okay, complaints about the complainers done.
NONSPOILER REVIEW
I really liked the casting. Would I love to see more Greeks or at least olive-skinned, curly-haired Mediterranean people in The Odyssey? Yeah. The idea of everyone important in ancient period pieces being fair-skinned is rather tired. But hell, everyone did a great job. At least everyone wasn't a pasty white British person. (I can't forgive 2004's Troy for that.) With the Greek kingdom's proximity to Africa, it is definitely plausible that Helen and Clytemnestra looked more like Lupita Nyongo than Diane Kruger or Charlize Theron.
Sometimes the dialog was hard for me to hear. A few of the times Athena appeared to Odysseus, I was like wtf are they saying? There's just ocean waves in the background, I should be able to hear this. Not sure if that's my own auditory processing issues combined with the fact that I'm used to watching everything with subtitles, or if it's a common audio mixing issue for everyone, or maybe a little of both.
The music was stellar. It was almost never silent. I loved the tension created from the near constant drum beats and bassy sounds. It's a little reminiscent of The Dark Knight, with that... sound you always hear when the Joker is about to do something messed up.
The 70mm IMAX was absolutely worth the 2 hour drive for me! Although, I admit, my eyes were probably drawn to the typical cinematic frame 90% of the time. Sometimes in the longer takes, especially with a lot of beautiful scenery in the background, I consciously looked to the top and bottom of the frame to enjoy the extra scenery. For a casual moviegoer who isn't a huge nerd like me, the more common digital IMAX projection at 1.90:1 aspect ratio is perfectly awesome. If you're not interested in spending anything extra and just want to go see it in regular digital widescreen projection, honestly, no judgment. I wanted to be part of history in seeing the first movie shot entirely in 70mm film projected in its true format, but I'm no film elitist - any modern aspect ratio is good.
SPOILERS
(Talking about Nolan's adaptation specifically)
I read a post from a Classicist who was helpfully sharing some of the finer details about the mythology that Nolan expects viewers to know. I can't remember everything from the post (I already knew it all said with nerd glasses not attitude) but one thing I do remember is actually something that was explicitly talked about in the movie A LOT. Zeus' law of treating strangers with kindness and hospitality, in case they're a god in disguise (called Xenia if ya wanna learn something!) is talked about MANY times. You really don't need to know what it is beforehand, lol. But that post was nice and if I find it again, I'll link it here.
I was as surprised and disappointed as anyone familiar with the text that Odysseus didn't pull the Nobody trick on Polyphemus! I wonder why Nolan made that choice. The "It can talk?" "Do you talk to ants?" exchange was a bit funny, but man, losing that example of Odysseus being very cunning and then very hubristic and stupid was a bummer. For those unfamiliar: Polyphemus talks to Odysseus and his men in the cave. Odysseus says his name is Nobody, and so when they stab out Polyphemus' eye, he screams to the other Cyclopes that "Nobody is hurting me!" and the other Cyclopes are like "lol okay bro stfu then." But then as Odysseus and his men are sailing away, he shouts to Polyphemus "It was I, Odysseus of Ithaca, who tricked you!" and so Polyphemus is able to ask his father Poseidon to specifically punish Odysseus. Greece's smartest warrior, huh? 🙄😆
I had absolutely no memory of the Laestrygonians. (Quite possibly because I've only been listening to female perspective retellings of the mythology lately, and there were no women in that scene 🤣) The whole time I was like "huh, is this scene a Nolan original? I'm surprised I didn't see people bitching about this scene." 🤣
The moment right before the sirens' song when Eurylochus put the wax in his ears one ear at a time? And the audio in the left speakers got muffly, then the right speakers? I audibly gasped. Absolute chills. Fantastic sound mixing, 10/10 no notes.
I'm so glad we didn't actually hear the sirens' songs. Odysseus' description of it dubbed over him writhing and crying was beautiful. I always interpreted the sirens as sexually tantalizing, basically the ancient mermaid version of a Victorian red light district lol. This description of them was brilliant and heartbreaking and I loved it.
Eurylochus telling Odysseus to pray to Poseidon and ask for forgiveness as their ship was getting destroyed made me laugh. Bro, you KNEW that killing any of Apollo's sacred cows would get you killed. (wasn't it Helios in the original? Geek moment I know, Apollo is the more well-known sun god so the change makes sense.) You KNOW that you're being punished for that action. YOU pray to Apollo and ask for forgiveness! Like yeah, Odysseus talked about defying the Gods A LOT and he did need to do some praying. But this storm, this moment, is on you and the rest of the men, not Odysseus, and you know it.
Robert Pattinson did a fantastic job of looking absolutely insane as Antinous toward the end of the film. You could see his world crumbling in front of him through his eyes and I was absolutely there for it.
I really like that Nolan chose to make Odysseus feel some kind of way about the consequences of his actions. It's been a while since I read the original - lately I've been reading feminist retellings from the perspective of the women in these stories - but I don't remember Odysseus feeling any remorse. Is the whole "you don't actually want to go home" revelation a part of the original text? If not, honestly, it's great that Nolan put it in there. Making Odysseus feel badly about his actions and the ramifications that followed, making him realize that the very act of tricking the Trojans and destroying their city through their "gift" was a violation of Zeus' law, and forcing him to deal with knowing the downfall of society as he knew it was partially his fault - DAYUM. That's the type of perspective offered in those female perspectives, written by authors like Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint - not usually found in retellings coming from men. Odysseus is usually the Perfect Genius Amazing Brilliant Strong Brave Albeit Slightly Hubristic Hero, and seeing him feel doubt and remorse and confusion was honestly refreshing.
I saw one critique of the movie (from someone who'd actually seen it, at least!) that it was very much a rehashing of Nolan's previous films. I didn't really ask this person to clarify what they meant. But I've seen most of Nolan's films, and idk what this person is talking about. If it was his visual style, that's kind of the point of being a prolific director, no? We don't watch Wes Anderson films and criticize them for looking like Wes Anderson movies. (Maybe some people do, but they're wrong imo.) Or did they mean elements of the story? Honestly, The Odyssey was written 3,000+ years ago. If elements of this story are in Nolan's earlier films, that's a sign that Homer has always been an influence on Nolan. Not that Nolan was unoriginal for adapting The Odyssey. I mean, I guess you can argue that anyone adapting a 3,000 year old story isn't being original, but that feels like a very different note from "Movie 7 was so similar to movies 1-6." Or maybe this person was specifically calling out the end, with Odysseus and Penelope heading out toward the setting sun with hope, dreaming of a better future to come? I guess that's pretty typical of a Nolan movie. Definitely not too tropey for my taste. If cowboy movies could do it for decades, so can Nolan.
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