The Odyssey Review
Spoiler Alert – C’mon! It’s been out for a couple weeks/millennia already.
In what felt like a twenty-year period away, I made my triumphant return to a movie theater for the first time since last November to see The Odyssey. No one will ever confuse the Hampden AMC 8 in Mechanicsburg, PA with an Ithacan palace or an IMAX theater, but this empty cinema on a Thursday afternoon provided me with both a prime upper-level, middle-of-the-row seat and an $8.39-matinee-priced ticket that augmented Nolan’s newest spectacle.
Unlike many of the ultra-online troglodytes of today worried about casting choices and historical accuracy, my primary concerns revolved around runtime, adapting a 700 B.C. story to a twenty-first-century audience, and after the dud of a nuclear blast in Oppenheimer, the visual effects. Intimidated at first sight by the 172-minute runtime, I intentionally dehydrated myself by drinking less water and coffee in the morning than usual and took it a step further with a trip to the gym before the showtime in an attempt to ensure no scenes would be missed and replaced with scenes of a urinal. While this cautionary prep succeeded, it may have been unnecessary as The Odyssey’s pacing, well-executed, action-packed tense scenes of the Odysseus Future Wolfgang crew facing the wrath of the gods, and non-linear storytelling made it feel shorter than some of the two-hour movies I watched recently. I only checked my watch for gum-chewing purposes. This ensured I paced myself by adding only one new spearmint piece to the wad in my mouth every thirty minutes and not experiencing a loss of flavor within the green rubber before the third act.
AMC Hampden 8: We make movies and wads of gum better
Like billions of others over the past 2700 years, I read Homer’s The Odyssey(‘s plot on Wikipedia) before watching it, so I knew the degree of difficulty of adapting the original text to just a three-hour movie would be high. Some will accuse Nolan of placating to a 21st century audience instead of creating a 1:1 version of the original (I’d argue he didn’t go far enough and should have included closed captions), but for three hours he effortlessly immerses theatergoers into the world of one of humankind’s longest-lasting stories presented on a prodigious scale while retaining its universal morals via ineffable practical effects. Speaking of, in a world of modern blockbusters overdosing on the use of green screen and budget-focused AI assistance, learning that the horrifying Circe Animorph scene, the forced perspective shots featuring short king doubles and 7-foot tall Laestrygonians, and the ship segments were all completed practically, left me in a flabbergasted state of amazement.
Now to quickly address the criticisms of the aforementioned cretins, who for the most part have not even watched the movie yet. As a whole, the cast performed tremendously well. In all honestly, I completely forgot Elliot Page was even in the movie until I saw a discussion after I finished it. His work was fine and appropriate for the role, so fuck off bigots. I don’t believe Lupita Nyong'o deserved 5th billing for a small role that saw her on screen for maybe four or five minutes, tops, but there’s also no need for pushback on her casting and looks after showcasing a solid performance. (I will give the haters credit in that whoever played her twin sister was a total babe and deserved the Helen role more!) Initially, I rolled my eyes at Nolan’s explanation of connecting rappers to bards, but Travis Scott’s charismatic delivery of the Odysseus Victory song starts the film off on the proper tone. Pattinson and Leguizamo were both obvious standouts among a stacked cast, but the most deserving of an Oscar was the dog who played Argos, who undisputedly pulled off the most poignant tail wag in film history.
I’ve also seen online commenters moan about realism. Realism? Brother, there’s a damn cyclops, one with healthy eating habits including portion control and a commitment to intermittent fasting that I enviously respect, in the story! Who cares. However, at the same time, those same people will probably be perturbed by inclusion of the realistic scene highlighting the raping-and-pillaging-focused atrocities of war.
4 men a day keep’s the doctor away!
For the history-loving pedants, maybe there are some egregious examples of inaccurate Bronze Age armor, but you have to admit that the Agamemnon mythological Batman look was sweet.
I will acknowledge some scenes could have been shot in better lighting, but fortunately, none were ever at a Game of Thrones episode “The Long Night” level of bad. I’m not sure where I’d currently place The Odyssey in my Nolan rankings, but I know it hasn’t surpassed The Prestige or Memento. However, I’m certain of a couple things: if I was one of Odysseus’s men, I’d succumb to either a scurvy-related illness prior to arriving at the shores of Troy or drown in piss at the bottom of the Trojan Horse and I’m ready to return to the movie theater as soon as possible to rewatch this movie.