as someone wanting to study classics at university i watched the odyssey yesterday and i have some thoughts on it (there will be spoilers) -
1, visually stunning. i loved the way he did ithaca and circe's island. i've also never seen a better polyphemus design.
2, matt damon as odysseus was a good choice. samantha morton and the whole circe sequence was a marvel. john leguizamo and himesh patel were excellent, really stole the show for me. did not think tom holland was as bad as people mad him out to me and thought he held his ground very well.
3, the troy sequence when odysseus is talking to penelope at the end was stunning. showed that nolan did in fact have an understanding of the complexity of odysseyeus, even if it wasn't always obvious earlier in the film. the athena 'reveal' was genius.
4, fleshing out antinous was a good move, and sinon in the underworld was a masterclass.
5, the contrast of agamemnon's visual aura to his eventual weakness was clever, and i like the way you barely saw his face, only when he was killed.
6, nolan's creative decisions all served a purpose to directly address odysseus's guilt; circe as an old woman, the sort that would have been murdered and exploited by his men, the giant's use of a child as bait (parallel to sinon), etc.
7, soundtrack. the siren song playing when he saw penelope again!!!!!
8, i actually liked the trojan horse sequence?? was always gonna be complicated to show visually but thought it was done very well.
9, i liked the nuance around the existence of magic. the parallel of the giants to what everyone else perceives the crew to be. the men from the sea. the siren scene. the absence of any god other than athena, who could very well be the figment of odysseus's guilt, really sent home that they had been abandoned.
1, the american accents. i'm sorry. i think they should just have had their own accents. matt damon's boston came out a few times and it was jarring.
2, nolan still struggles with his women. anne hathaway did the best with what she could but ultimately was not given time to be fleshed out.
3, general issue with the fleshing out of characters. perhaps the odyssey is simply too long and too character filled to appropriately give enough time to each character on screen.
4, charlize theron was a miscast and calypso was horribly done. i don't even wanna talk about it.
5, dialogue was rough at times. 'our age of bronze is coming to an end.'. general nolan issue though, moments of brilliance in the script, but some more clunky bits
overall i had a great time and love anything that will get more people interested in classics. a perfect adaptation of the odyssey is probably impossible, but i thought nolan made a bloody good attempt. could it have been better? yes. but the troy scene referenced in 3 really boosted the film to me, cause it added a layer of emotional complexity and directly addressed for the first time that odysseyeus is this conflicted and complicated man, who is unsure of his own status as a hero.
