A Hellenic Polytheist Reviews Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY (An Honest Critique)

[00:00:00]Yes, calm.

[00:00:04]So, I did go see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and here are my thoughts of the film. And here you go. So, I want to start my thoughts and review with addressing the elephants in the room.

[00:00:18]The biggest elephants I just want to get out of the way so we can talk about the movie itself. So, needless to say that this movie was just entirely miscast and I was willing to forgive it. I mean, I don't know if it's because there was a bug in ear because that's what I've been hearing for the last month or two, but I agree that the entire film I was watching the Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's film, and I kept thinking this really isn't the Odyssey, seeing Anne Hathaway, seeing Tom Holland, Matt Demon. uh it's it is miscast, but there is something to that as well. And here comes the twist in that statement.

[00:00:57]in that twist is that I've been seeing a counterpoint to saying that this film is miscast to say that the most beloved film of all time apparently is Troy cuz we keep seeing how this was the perfect Helen Troy even though she is not played by a Greek actress.

[00:01:19]So Troy is a miscast. Brad Pitt, Sean Bean, Peter Rotul, and Diane Krueger playing Helen Troy. The people keep flaunting on Facebook and on social media as the perfect Helen of Troy is not Greek. So Troy is miscast.

[00:01:37]In the 1997 film, The Odyssey with Armandante as Adysius, it's miscast because he's Irish Italian, not Greek.

[00:01:47]But people love this movie. and so on and so on. Alexander, the film played by Colin Frell as Alexander the Great, an Irishman, Geraldto as a feistian, not Greek. So, it goes on and on and on. But people have learned to appreciate these movies and it's because of the story that they tell. And I was willing to forgive this film for its casting if I loved the story. So, another myth I want to dispel right now is that we always hear that this film, Christopher Nolan, the writers were heavily inspired by Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey. This book right here, this one supposedly is what Christopher Nolan read and he got the inspiration and was heavily inspired to do the movie and blah blah blah. And I can tell you that that is not true. I have read the book. I've read her translation. That may be true, but you cannot tell me that that this film came out of this book because this is way more faithful to Homer than the Christopher Nolan film, which I'm going to talk about now. And with that said, you will be happy to hear that I went to this movie. I saw Christopher Nolan's film and I came out and I didn't love it. So, I'm going to get into the details about why I didn't love it with a lot of spoilers. But before I do, I'm going to address the other elephant in the room, and that is the slogan of defy the gods. You know, ever since the first Caesar Poser came out, we saw the slogan defy the gods, a play on defy the odds, and we thought, h blasphemy.

[00:03:34]But really when you watch the film, defy the gods is maybe said one time and I think it's even in one of the trailers he says then I'm going to defy the gods.

[00:03:42]So that's kind of taken out of context.

[00:03:44]You can think whoa what a movie this is not something I want to see. So what he is referring to just a minor spoiler.

[00:03:52]The whole defy the gods what does that even mean? Is he like really reeling against the gods? No. So, Defy the Gods is this, again, minor spoiler, a tease of what's to come, is that Athena that I'll get to later, something I'll talk about, tells Adysius, I want to say it was Athena, tells Adysius that the gods have only plans for you to make it back to Ithaca. And the gods, that's the god's will. And he says, "Well, I guess I'm going to have to defy the gods."

[00:04:26]meaning that he wants all of his men to go back to Ithaca. That's it. That is the whole origin of that one line that bugs people to death. It's not a blasphemous thing in context. He's just saying that he wants to make sure that all of his men make it back home to Ithaca. And that's what defy the godens means in the film. And the last thing I wanted to point out that's been a big issue for a lot of people online are the costumes. I agree. The costumes do not look great and it kind of was distracting in the film as well. And you could definitely tell, especially with Agamemnon, that Christopher Nolan was trying to reference his Batman, his Christian bale Batman. You could just tell the way they swing the gates open of Troy and Agamnstein's just standing in the middle. It just screams Batman.

[00:05:14]And I think that was supposed to be a joke reference to his Batman trilogy. If not, it was subconscious because it's definitely there. All right, so now we are going to walk into spoiler territory. So, if you have zero plans of ever seeing this movie, then you have no problems with what I'm going to talk about. But if you want to see the movie first, definitely stop here, unless you just want some spoilers of what I'm going to talk about because now I'm going to get into what I liked and what I didn't like about the film. So, I'm going to begin by telling you what I did like. So sitting in the theater I think is the only way and the best way to really truly experience this film. Not because of the camera but because of the sound. I really loved the sound effects and how loud everything is when Adysius goes to the cave to the Cyclops of Polyphamus Polyphimas.

[00:06:07]And you just hear the roaring whenever he gets stabbed in the eye during the Trojan War. Whenever this the battles and they're just slaughtering the town of Troy, you just hear the screams. Just the loudness just captures that feeling and it literally shakes you to the core.

[00:06:25]And I thought that the sound in the film was fantastic. So I will give it to the sound engineers and the ones that do the sounds for the movie. I really enjoyed what they did and on those theater speakers, it just comes across as something else. And I really did enjoy.

[00:06:41]thing that I did like is you'll if you ever do see the film is that they talk about Zeus's law. You can't break Zeus's law. What is Zeus's law? They say it like 30 times this movie over the 33 hours. That is Sia hospitality. They that is the theme of the movie. I think every character in this film says I'm here for Zeus's law. They'll forgive me because of Zeus's law. You can't do that. Zeus's law. They talk about that.

[00:07:09]you can't break Zeus's law. So, they're really big about Zenia and about hospitality, which is one of our virtues I thought was really cool to see expressed in the film, which is a part of Homer's The Odyssey. That is a big part of the story. So, for the most part, you guys already know the story of the Odyssey. So, I'm not going to tell you the plot of it. That's why I'm going to go more into the direction of likes and don't likes. So, the first dislike that I can think of that really I literally shuddered and just shook my head was there is a scene that you've seen some of in the trailer where Tmicus goes to Menaaus, the brother of Agamemnon, to search for his father, Adysius, to see if his dad is still alive. And that's a whole other thing that I didn't talk about is the language in this film about using the words dad, mom. But that's a side that's another topic. [snorts] But the scene though [laughter] that bugged me I did not like is that Talmicus goes to Menaaus to talk to him about his dad and there sits by Menaaus Helen Troy and it's not because of the actress that it upset me because that's been dug into the ground and done to death about the actress that's played Helen Troy in this film but what happens is that there is a scene again spoilers for the rest of the video in the scene Menaaus turns his wife's. So Helen is looking straight ahead. The camera's like this and he grabs her face and turns it to the camera towards Tmicus and her entire face is scarred right here like she has battle wounds from Troy or there's an interpretation saying that Menaaus scarred her and marred her once he got her back. And like I said that I shut my head. I was like no [laughter] I I don't like that. So Mark one for did not like that part. So another thing I did not like I know is that Adysius goes to the island of Polyphamus or Polyphimas the Cyclops. So in the new movie they go to the island of the Cyclops and when they go into the cave they find the cheese and they are going to um eat the cheese and then try to repay the the owner of the cave when he returns. And of course it is the Cyclops. Now what did I not like? That's all good. So, what I did not like about this scene was that for the most part until the cyclops is injured, it never speaks. It's totally mute. There is no conversation between Adysius and Polyphimmus.

[00:09:43]Like the whole, "Who are you? I'm nobody." And then he gets blinded and says, "Nobody blinding me." That's entirely out of this film. Again, something I thought was a huge part. Not in this movie. So, we're going to keep it going on the dislikes. So, another thing not in the film. Aololis, the whole bag of wind, not in the film. The floating island, all of that, not in the film.

[00:10:11]Hermes, not in the film. The whole thing about Hermes helping him escape Cersei, Girki, and Calypso, not in the film. So, speaking of Cersei, this is the biggest part of the movie.

[00:10:27]The ones that have seen this, if you look up spoilers, they're all talking about the actress in the Cersei scene when he gets to Cersei's Island.

[00:10:37][snorts] So, needless to say, it's interesting and it falls into the category of, you guessed it, I didn't like this version of Cersei or Ky if you want to go there like I love to do. So if you love it's just a totally different thing. So in this film, Adysius goes to the island and they do go and have the food and they are turned into pigs which is a really graphic and horrific scene where instead of using magic to turn them into pigs, what she does is that gives them bowls of food to eat and it's like a curse. They can't stop eating. They're like eating like these noodles or um goat intestines or something, you know? I forget what it's called, but those intestines that you can eat, you know, that it just looks like in a test are eating. They can't stop help themselves from eating it. And that's when Cersei works her magic.

[00:11:32]>> So, I misspoke. It is magic she uses, but not the traditional sense. And I said goat intestines that they're eating. Tripe was the word I was looking for. I had to look it up. like that's going to bug me or oal as some people call it. But people eat love eating tripe. So there you go. You learn something new. But yeah, so Cersei uses her magic but it's not in the Odyssey way. So as these men are eating their tripe because that's what it looks like.

[00:12:00]They're just this unining bowl of guts.

[00:12:02]It looks like she literally walks behind them and grabs their faces and shapes them like clay and molds them into animals. and she makes all of Adysius's men into pigs that way. Really cool scene and really horrific, but again, it is not like in the story. So, that kind of disappointed me that they did their own thing and turned it into a horror movie. It was definitely inspired by a horror scene. So, saying I don't like it, I liked it in that sense, but as an odyssey thing of part of the story, I don't know if I really enjoyed it that much. And especially that she's not like on an island with NYS like you traditionally see Cersei, but she's like an old witch in a cottage. Literally, that's where they find her. They find her in a cottage on a mountain just like a regular old lady. That's her disguise in this film is that she is just an old lady in a cottage feeding guests food and as they can't stop eating, she molds their faces into animals. And um Adysius does not use Molly Moly uh that Hermes gives him to prevent him changing. He just talks her out of feeding it or he hears the banging of his pig men behind the door and he's like, "Whoa, there's something wrong with this food." And that's what stops him from eating it.

[00:13:28]And then he talks her into being good and changing his men back. I could go on and on about my dislikes of what I did not like in this three-hour movie, but I think the last thing I want to talk about on the dislike list is the ending of the film. How we get to the big scene where Adysius is fighting the suitors.

[00:13:48]So, you know, in the story, Adysius kills all the suitors, but in the film, Antinuous, the main suitor, Robert Patson, he is killed. And they have this huge battle like they should. They lock the doors and Adysius does his thing.

[00:14:06]You know, he kicks butt and does John Wick on all the suitors and kills Intenuous.

[00:14:13]And once he kills Intenuous, their suitor still alive. He doesn't kill all of them before he kills Robert Patson.

[00:14:21]And when he does though, it's like there's a change. Like there's a they just change. So the suitors left alive, they don't keep fighting Adysius. What do they do? Adysius turns around and looks in the room and all the other suitors are just down on their knees like bowing to Adysius like he is the alpha now. So they are going to follow him and Adysius lets them live.

[00:14:44][laughter] I was like what is going on? cuz you kill the main bad guy and you turn and look and all the other suitors are on their knees like bowing to Adysius like he is the top gorilla now or something and they're like going doom like pounding the floor like saying yeah yeah to Adysius I was like okay with all those negatives said I did for the most part enjoy the movie there were parts that I did like such as when they go to the underworld and they meet Tyresius and he gets to talk to the spirit of Agamemnon using the blood sacrifice of the animals and the shades to drink the blood so they can speak. All that was really cool. And I would think that's what really sums up my thoughts of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is that there were parts I like and then for what I liked, there were two things I didn't like. Um like I was watching like I told my wife, I was like, I like it. I like it. Was I was thinking in my head like it? What? What's going on? I like it. Like it like it what it's like whenever he strayed the writers strayed from the Odyssey it had me question of what are they doing in to the story it's like what are you doing that was a good that's that's it sums up what are you doing what was my thought then when it got back to what's in the Odyssey I like it I like it I like it and um it went that way all the way to the end to me walking out of the movie after it was over. So overall, as a film, if you know nothing about the Odyssey, then I can see how it gets such a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, um, if you love the Odyssey, if you've read it, you studied it, you know, the epic by heart, like I told a friend I went with as well, I said, as a movie, it's good. As an adaptation, they got about 50 or 60% of it right. So, you can grade it as you will. You can give it a pass or you can give it a 50 or 60 based on how much it stays true to the Odyssey.

[00:16:50]And everyone knows that watches this knows that I love the Odyssey. So, I was not coming out of it thinking it's the best movie. Going in, I was telling everybody that if I really like it, I'm going to go see it in IMAX on another day. And I came out of it thinking to myself and saying to myself, I think I'm okay just maybe seeing it again whenever it's streaming. I don't have to go to see it on IMAX. I did get this massive beast though that I'll show you guys.

[00:17:18]This is the popcorn bucket of the Trojan horse. The design of the Trojan horse is something I didn't talk about. I thought was really cool. I really do like the design of the Trojan horse. And this is my hand. Just to give you an idea, this thing is about two feet tall or just under two feet tall. This thing is enormous. But and it was the last one they had at the theater. So, even though I had mixed feelings about the movie, this is a cool little collectible that I had, the Trojan horse, and I do like the design of it. Guys, I can go on and on and I will save my breath on that and let you guys go see it for yourself if that's something you want to do. I just mainly want to give a couple of my thoughts about it, especially getting all the big elephants, like I said at the beginning, out of the way, the whole miscasting that's happened before. We've seen it before. And I still love some movies where it's completely miscast like the ones I mentioned because white people are not Greeks and they're not substitutes for Greek people. So having like Matt Demon, even Armanosanti in it is just as miscast as having as having Vanessa Williams as Calypso for example from the 97 film. That's a miscast too, but people love that. Anyway, I will talk to you later guys.