The Odyssey

Thank God they stopped filming so Telemachus didn’t come home to a rainbow over his castle:

“And I just remember standing under an umbrella with Chris, and the most preposterous rainbow was coming out of the castle I was supposed to be going home to. And we just did have to wait for the rainbow to clear, because it was the most ridiculous thing. It looked like something out of My Little Pony.”

—Tom Holland

There were more ridiculous things. The stormtrooper island was absurd. The portrayal of Calypso as encouraging Odysseus to remember Penelope was equally ridiculous (very Streisand Prince of Tides, too), and the portrayal of Circe was offensive and contradictory.

Helen’s apparent fear of Menelaus and the 500 ships joke didn’t work for me, nor did making Helen and Clytemnestra twins.

Agamemnon was beyond absurd, so over the top he could’ve passed for Ares.

The zombies.

Don’t get me started about the Cyclops—Odysseus and his men don’t get Polyphemus drunk on wine, and there is no dialogue between him and Odysseus.

Nausicaa doesn’t appear; in fact, Odysseus lands on Ithacan shores almost immediately after leaving Calypso’s island. Everything prior to his homecoming is presented as memory told to Calypso.

Yes, there were some good scenes, but too much story was lost for gratuitous battle scenes. Entirely too much film and time was spent on the Trojan Horse, which reminded me of the Game of Thrones gates to Vaes Dothrak once it was uprighted within the walls of Troy. Further, it’s treated as an action that offended the gods instead of one suggested by a goddess.

The scenes on the ship were good.

There was a beautiful scene with Penelope and Antinous.

The siren song scene was mainly done well.

Odysseus spouting wisdom and platitudes was an exhibition of unearned editorializing. Clever and wise are different qualities.

I noticed some nods to the 1990s NBC miniseries; specifically, the boy on the stormtrooper island is initially reminiscent of Aeolus, and Calypso’s styling is reminiscent of Penelope’s. Both struck me as odd.

I also found it odd that the bow and axes appear in the opening, with Odysseus making the shot as performance—truly unnecessary foreshadowing.

To say that I hated it is putting it mildly. I almost got up and walked out during the scenes on Circe’s island (which she apparently shares with the storm troopers, lives alone with no maids, and manually transforms men into animals. Her palace is in ruins, and the dagger scene is so far corrupted that I’d like to forget it. Hermes? Absent. Moly? Nope. The length of Odysseus and his men’s stay on Circe’s island is less than a day.

In addition to the removal of divinity from Circe and Calypso, there are some out of place feminist soliloquies from Circe (concerning the evil men do) and from Penelope (concerning being underestimated as the ruler of Ithaca), neither of which fit the attitude of the film. Also, Antinous’s seduction of Melantho is underplayed to the degree that Nolan’s juxtaposition of Melantho and Penelope fails.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that I laughed at it, although I’m certain it wasn’t intended to be funny. The absurdity of it was far more ridiculous than a My Little Pony rainbow ever thought about being.

This latest film interpretation changes fundamental parts of the story, so much that the meaning also changes, superimposing the director’s vision onto one of the cornerstones of western literature. The story was changed to support the vision over the epic itself. It tampers with the gods and their roles in it as well as the motivation of the central character. If you want loud battles and special effects, absolutely go and get your jollies. If you’re familiar with the actual events in The Odyssey and the ideas behind them, you might want to skip this. I wish I had.