(absolutely not a professional review, just a random stream of thoughts - don't @ me)
Well, I watched Nolan's The Odyssey and I definitely enjoyed it overall. Part of it was just the sheer joy, as a classicist, of seeing Homer receive such prominence in pop culture (a 3-hr film by one of most prominent filmmakers today). Hell, even the controversies, as dumb as they are, have kept us all thinking and talking about a text that I imagined many had forgotten and stopped caring about.
As for the film itself, although I think fidelity to the text has never been relevant to Homeric reception, the film was actually more faithful at times than Tumblr had led me to believe. It followed the same basic plot as Homer's work but, more beautifully, it followed the same fundamental narrative sequence: it began with Telemachus finding out about his father through the memories of those who knew him, just as in Homer, where Odysseus doesn't appear until Book 5. As in the epic, we, the film's audience, are by Telemachus' side in discovering Odysseus through other people's memories before he actually appears in the film. I had assumed Hollywood would view this narrative device as too boring and not include it, but clearly I was wrong. Similarly, you have the same story-within-a-story device as in Homer's epic: Telemachus learns about the Trojan Horse episode from Menelaus, and much of Odysseus' journey is recounted by the man himself (although to Calypso, not the Phaeacians sadly).
Even though most scenes featured noticeable changes, some scenes had surprisingly precise details that had come straight from Homer: e.g. Telemachus weeping on hearing Menelaus talk of his father, thereby giving away his identity to Helen (Book 4); then, Odysseus physically shutting up one of the Greeks in the Horse (also Book 4); also Odysseus only going to the threshold of the underworld and the spirits of the dead drinking the blood from the trench (Book 11).
Despite talk of Nolan's monochrome style, I felt the visuals were beautiful, at times capturing the surreal feel of Homer's landscapes (esp. the opening scene with the Trojan Horse). Circe's island and the Laestrygonian islands were both stunning (the latter was a Scottish beach and the former resembled maybe Cornwall or Brittany?). The katabasis scene was wonderfully unsettling, likewise the Cyclops' cave.
The costume and character design definitely helped with these latter two scenes. Agamemnon's weird Batman/Vader/buff-squidward helmet nicely distinguished him from the other shades and ensured that his presence literally hung over the scene. The Cyclop's alien form more resembled Vergil's beastly Cacus than Homer's Polyphemus, but I felt it worked; he was more horrid than any other adaptation I've seen. And intensifying Polyphemus' alienness only produced a more gripping contradiction when he let out that startingly inhuman cry (after being blinded) only to begin sulking no differently to a human toddler.
Despite some crappy costumes (esp. Telemachus' pants and Menelaus' hunting hoody), I felt that the Trojans' armour wasn't one of these. Initially, I was baffled by their paper cutout look, but soon I realised that there was something surreal about it. The Homeric text has always had a surreal feel, which I never thought could be captured on film: the paradox of archaic vocab and grammatical forms alongside more "recent"/classical forms and colloquial constructions, and, of course, the impossible descriptions of the landscape, e.g. "bronze sky" ("οὐρανον...πολύχαλκον", Od., 3.2) or the "wine-faced sea" ("οἶνοψ", everywhere in Homer). Probably unintended by Nolan, but I thought the combination of the realistic and unrealistic in the Trojan costume evoked this same surreal contradiction.
As for the themes, it was still the same fundamental story of a man determined to return home to his wife and son. The film undermined this a bit by having Odysseus forget his past while on Calypso's island (I don't think this is in Homer. He suffers precisely because he remembers), though Nolan salvages Odysseus' loyalty to Penelope by cutting his adultery with Circe and by not showing any sex with Calypso. Odysseus' cunning and persuasion is a bit subdued but it's still visible, e.g. his lies to Sinon; his withholding of information from his companions; and naturally his beggar disguise during his return to Ithaca.
Homer's themes of hubris and remorse for such arrogance can still be found in the film: his companions slain by Zeus for eating Helios' cattle; Odysseus' insistence on hearing the Sirens' song; and his general 'defy the gods' mentality. Nolan, though, extends this remorse to include regret at harming human beings. I presume he does this to enhance the film's anti-war message and maybe also increase its appeal to us moderns, weary of living through an age of Forever War. I must say, though, this modern 'traumatised veteran' angle does reflect a post-war anguish that Homer's characters genuinely bear throughout the epic (e.g. Menelaus and Helen's complaints in Book 4 about Greek suffering at Troy and then having to drug Menelaus and Telemachus with opiates (!) to stop them from weeping at the memory. Also, in Book 8, Odysseus breaks down after hearing Demodocus sing of the Trojan Horse).
Eh, on the whole, I feel the film came together nicely, despite its faults (I rant about these in another post...). It had some gorgeous scenes, it explored relevant themes, many taken from the Homeric text, and, importantly, it ensures that Homer is not forgotten in our time.
