Film Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY | OUT NOW!

Solius said:
My point was more that the story has been told in various ways and is open to interpretation. It's not real history. Someone can present it exactly how they want.
Click to expand...
Yeah, exactly. Plus retelling a story like it was is uninteresting; that version already exists.

I question lots of Nolan's narrative choices, but 'it isn't like this in the Homeric Odyssey' or 'this is historically inaccurate' aren't interesting arguments to me - especially in this case, as the Homeric story also mixes up time periods and would have been reinvented for its audience by bards at each retelling.
Revan said:
His parents in the movie were American, so I assume just to have the same accent between them.

Never understood why if it has swords, it must have English accent when it comes to movies/shows.
Click to expand...
Totally agree. If anything, it's jarring that characters in historic films usually speak in old-fashioned language and accent. That reflects nothing real. People would have spoken their natural language in the past, just as people do know. I don't care which accent a director decides on, but really prefer if it sounds natural. (Including 'dad' over 'father'. Who still addresses his dad using 'father', especially in the context of the American accent...)
 
MadMike said:
I saw the film yesterday and it turns out the weird take about the Sea People and the horse breaking Zeus' law, was not such a big problem for me because that just unravels right near the end in Odysseus monologue to Penelope. Even so, Odysseus calling it the Age of Bronze and foreshadowing its end is somewhat jarring and immersion breaking in that moment. Moreso than the justification over why that happens.
Click to expand...
Jarring and immersion-breaking are good ways to put it. If you know that period of history well, these are bizarre historical references that detract from what's going on. Or that's how it worked for me, anyway.

@Rooney in Paris, I think you asked me about that earlier.
 
MadMike said:
Actually an excellent interview, thanks for the link and to @Salt Bailly for the notification.

I saw the film yesterday and it turns out the weird take about the Sea People and the horse breaking Zeus' law, was not such a big problem for me because that just unravels right near the end in Odysseus monologue to Penelope. Even so, Odysseus calling it the Age of Bronze and foreshadowing its end is somewhat jarring and immersion breaking in that moment. Moreso than the justification over why that happens.

Overall: 6.5/10 for me

My biggest issues were actually what @Walrus and others said. Relentless pacing, everything is dark and gray, lack of good music/effects loudness, the end fight scene which is borderline comical, Darth Agamemnon... But my biggest issue, was that Matt Damon as Odysseus just doesn't didn't do it for me. His performance feels a little wooden and lacking emotion. And when your character is not a deceptive, mischievous, full-of-himself rapscallion but a weary, PTSDed war veteran instead... then you have to sell the emotion better IMO.

It has some good parts though: the Circe and Hades scenes were captivating, the Sinon story was a good touch, John Leguizamo as Eumeaus and Pattinson as Antinoos, the tension as the gate of Troy is opening, I personally also liked the takes on the Cyclops and Athena (or the overall presence of the gods).

I think really the Odyssey really needs to be a mini-series or a dilogy/trilogy or something, for the pacing to feel right. The text size is almost the size of Dune. You need at least 5, maybe 6, hours of screentime for the characters, the places and the scenes to develop more organically. So that it doesn't feel like the crew is just running for the boats with a Benny Hill soundtrack, every 10 mins. I feel like given time budget, Villeneuve would much better work of it by splitting it into 2 films. Although admittedly, a ~3000 year old text needs a lot more work and adaption to make it suitable for modern audiences, compared to the 60 year old works of Frank Herbert.
Click to expand...
Nice review. Glad you got something out of it!
 
Forgive me if this was mentioned already but did anybody else get serious Death Stranding vibes from the Hades scene?
 
I'm surprised pacing is mentioned as a minus by a few, the three hours hung together really well for me. Calypso sequences felt like natural visual and action contrasts. I loved the score as well but music is always a more personal thing.
Vidyoyo said:
Forgive me if this was mentioned already but did anybody else get serious Death Stranding vibes from the Hades scene?
Click to expand...
Hadn't thought about it at the time, but now you mention it, yup.
 
Melbourne Red said:
I did find the use of American accents conspicuous but got over it because it just seemed so silly to quibble about which accent is used in a movie about ancient Greece.

There is simply no sensible reason why any sort of historical fiction not set in England has to be filmed with English accents, or why the convention can't be broken.

It also worked fine in Amadeus, which is set in Vienna. The important thing is that people from the same dialect group speak in the same accent.



This I don't get. They're all supposed to be Greek and most importantly, some of them are supposed to be related. How could it be anything other than noticeably inconsistent if they spoke in markedly different accents?

Getting all the British and North American actors to speak in their native accents can actually work if you're seeking to represent people who speak the same language with different regional markers. For example, it worked well in Death of Stalin because they characters were all supposed to be from different parts of the Soviet Union. I don't think it would make any sense here
Click to expand...
Where's your review MB.
 
MadMike said:
Actually an excellent interview, thanks for the link and to @Salt Bailly for the notification.

I saw the film yesterday and it turns out the weird take about the Sea People and the horse breaking Zeus' law, was not such a big problem for me because that just unravels right near the end in Odysseus monologue to Penelope. Even so, Odysseus calling it the Age of Bronze and foreshadowing its end is somewhat jarring and immersion breaking in that moment. Moreso than the justification over why that happens.
Click to expand...
Have not seen the film but the Sea People angle actually sounds pretty interesting. Is it implied that the Greeks were the Sea People who contributed to the fall of the Bronze Age? I’ve always found that quite an interesting take as the supposed site of Troy is argued to have been destroyed (again, after a number of other times previously) a few decades before some of the big Bronze Age empires fall and Homer alludes to the Greeks destroying and pillaging many towns near Troy.
 
Irwin99 said:
Have not seen the film but the Sea People angle actually sounds pretty interesting. Is it implied that the Greeks were the Sea People who contributed to the fall of the Bronze Age? I’ve always found that quite an interesting take as the supposed site of Troy is argued to have been destroyed (again, after a number of other times previously) a few decades before some of the big Bronze Age empires fall and Homer alludes to the Greeks destroying and pillaging many towns near Troy.
Click to expand...
Yes. it is implied that ships of the returning, from the Trojan war, Greeks are the Sea People wreaking devastation upon the land and creating a domino effect. It's certainly an interesting angle but not one that holds up to any scientific scrutiny.

The most generally accepted theory about that period of time is based on a few surviving texts and on several geological and archaeological finds which indicate that earthquakes and climate change (mainly drought) caused massive food insecurity. International trade collapsed and there were famines which lead to upheavals, with people either rebelling against the aristocracy or moving en-masse, seeking new homes. And this likely included movements of peoples and tribes from outside of the known 4 "civilised" nations of the time (Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks and Egyptians). Hence the Sea Peoples are not described as an organised army but literally a migration of peoples with warriors moving along with their whole families. This doesn't fit with the returning warriors narrative at all.

This is a good ~25m video explaining stuff without going too deep or into academic-level detail.
 
MadMike said:
Yes. it is implied that ships of the returning, from the Trojan war, Greeks are the Sea People wreaking devastation upon the land and creating a domino effect. It's certainly an interesting angle but not one that holds up to any scientific scrutiny.

The most generally accepted theory about that period of time is based on a few surviving texts and on several geological and archaeological finds which indicate that earthquakes and climate change (mainly drought) caused massive food insecurity. International trade collapsed and there were famines which lead to upheavals, with people either rebelling against the aristocracy or moving en-masse, seeking new homes. And this likely included movements of peoples and tribes from outside of the known 4 "civilised" nations of the time (Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks and Egyptians). Hence the Sea Peoples are not described as an organised army but literally a migration of peoples with warriors moving along with their whole families. This doesn't fit with the returning warriors narrative at all.

This is a good ~25m video explaining stuff without going too deep or into academic-level detail.
Click to expand...

In general, of course, none of that matters in an fictional story; they can do whatever they want. It's like Gladiator talking about returning power to the Senate: a totally ridiculous idea for the time period in which the film is set, but it's a relatable notion for modern audiences (more attractive than replacing one emperor by another), and it makes sense in the universe of the film. It's similar with Nolan's The Odyssey and the Sea Peoples. But if you're into the history of that time, it's harder to ignore and can get in the way.
 
MadMike said:
Yes. it is implied that ships of the returning, from the Trojan war, Greeks are the Sea People wreaking devastation upon the land and creating a domino effect. It's certainly an interesting angle but not one that holds up to any scientific scrutiny.

The most generally accepted theory about that period of time is based on a few surviving texts and on several geological and archaeological finds which indicate that earthquakes and climate change (mainly drought) caused massive food insecurity. International trade collapsed and there were famines which lead to upheavals, with people either rebelling against the aristocracy or moving en-masse, seeking new homes. And this likely included movements of peoples and tribes from outside of the known 4 "civilised" nations of the time (Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks and Egyptians). Hence the Sea Peoples are not described as an organised army but literally a migration of peoples with warriors moving along with their whole families. This doesn't fit with the returning warriors narrative at all.

This is a good ~25m video explaining stuff without going too deep or into academic-level detail.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I really enjoy these channels and have read Eric Cline’s two books on the subject. I didn’t mean to imply that the Sea Peoples were wholly responsible for the end of the Bronze Age- Cline’s take is that drought, food scarcity, disasters, pandemics and various other factors created something of a perfect storm- and the sea people were more of an effect than a cause, but I do find myself wondering if Homer’s Mycenaean Greeks and their adventures might have been a distorted cultural memory, even if the Sea Peoples weren’t just Greeks.

I think there might be fragments of truth in the Trojan war and Troy that were used as a creative spark for Homer’s great poems. The idea that an army would spend 10 years fighting for one kidnapped woman and that the Trojans wouldn’t simply return her rather than watching everyone they know die is a bit silly and is something even Herodotus express doubt about. The idea of several large pillaging expeditions across Anatolia due to unrest or scarcity back home is more plausible (but not quite as poetic).
 
Cheimoon said:
In general, of course, none of that matters in an fictional story; they can do whatever they want. It's like Gladiator talking about returning power to the Senate: a totally ridiculous idea for the time period in which the film is set, but it's a relatable notion for modern audiences (more attractive than replacing one emperor by another), and it makes sense in the universe of the film. It's similar with Nolan's The Odyssey and the Sea Peoples. But if you're into the history of that time, it's harder to ignore and can get in the way.
Click to expand...
Yeah of course. No one is debating that he doesn't have the freedom to shape his adaptation to a mythic poem however he pleases. And even before I had watched the movie, I had given that explanation (of Greek soldiers being the Sea Peoples) a pass. I was more annoyed at Nolan's understanding/interpretation of Xenia, which is something we have a ton of historical input on and it's not shrouded in some mystery. But anyway it's still fine in the spirit of trying to tell a story and entertain modern audiences. So long as people don't believe there's some profound insight or social commentary on the historical period in Nolan's films, we'll be fine.
 
MadMike said:
Yeah of course. No one is debating that he doesn't have the freedom to shape his adaptation to a mythic poem however he pleases. And even before I had watched the movie, I had given that explanation (of Greek soldiers being the Sea Peoples) a pass. I was more annoyed at Nolan's understanding/interpretation of Xenia, which is something we have a ton of historical input on and it's not shrouded in some mystery. But anyway it's still fine in the spirit of trying to tell a story and entertain modern audiences. So long as people don't believe there's some profound insight or social commentary on the historical period in Nolan's films, we'll be fine.
Click to expand...
The thing is there IS obviously a profound insight and social commentary in Nolan's The Odyssey its just not about the ancient Greece, it is about the modern world.
 
Irwin99 said:
I think there might be fragments of truth in the Trojan war and Troy that were used as a creative spark for Homer’s great poems. The idea that an army would spend 10 years fighting for one kidnapped woman and that the Trojans wouldn’t simply return her rather than watching everyone they know die is a bit silly and is something even Herodotus express doubt about. The idea of several large pillaging expeditions across Anatolia due to unrest or scarcity back home is more plausible (but not quite as poetic).
Click to expand...
Never mind silly, it's utterly implausible for Bronze era logistics. Pretty much any number offered by Homer in the texts, is rejected and treated as a complete work of fiction.

Homer claims there were exactly 1,126 ships and those at the time averaged 80-120 men crews. Which would mean around 100k-130k men. Based on archaeological findings and agricultural capabilities of the time, the entire population of Greece at the time could have been 200k-300k, absolute tops. Which would include women, kids and elderly. If you took every single capable adult male Greek, you still likely don't get 100k men. Also the logistics are impossible. By the way 100k is the number of men at D-Day landings. It took 3,000 years to have the logistics capable of creating a marine invasion force of that scale. You're talking, at minimum rations, about 100 metric tons of grain and 300,000 litres of fresh water daily.

80-100 ships and 5000 men is considered the absolute peak of what the civilization would have been able to field, for a full campaign season (June to August). Year long campaigning was impossible, especially across the sea. By late august they would have to return home before the weather cuts them off from supply lines and means of escaping home. And obviously the whole thing about Helen must have been complete horseshit too, or at most an excuse for a war.
 
Last edited:
I actually think Nolan likes to make movies with vague messages where you can, in theory, read into them as being about just about anything. I rewatched Oppenheimer the other day and he does a similar thing in that. It's a vague idea about personal downfall when you're no longer considered useful. Power and politics corrupts. It reminded me of the villain quote from TDK.
 
Last edited:
Vidyoyo said:
personal downfall when you're no longer considered useful.
Click to expand...
iu
 
A film about Roy Keane where he's sent home from Saipan on a ship and goes about beating up foreigners along the way is a brilliant idea. DM me for private investment opportunities.
 
Pretty disappointing overall. Small comments upon on our current state are there but kept to the bare minimum so they don‘t get in the way of a very conventional high budget action blockbuster - also didn‘t offer any reasonable way to deal with it as far as I understood except a „ although we played a big part in why things are as shitty as they are, we’re going to retire cause we‘re well off“

But don‘t expect much from these kind of films and certainly not from Nolan so what bugged me off most was a mediocre cast and a screenplay that was for most parts extremely conservative.

Some scenes / settings were cool enough to make this an ok movie to watch
 
Drainy said:
The only things that bugged me were the American accents and Sci Fi design of the giants.

The rest is nitpicking, really
Click to expand...
I liked the giants tbh / didn‘t understand why the cyclops could see them with his eye but it‘s been over three decades I read the book. Sirens scene was a bit dull.
 
I loved it and it was, for me, exceptional story telling. One of the best movies I've seen. 10/10.
 
I would put the film somewhere between 4-6 of the Nolan movies alongside Inception and Interstellar. Probably would still put the Dark Knight, Oppenheimer and Memento above but thats just personal preference.
 
Thought it was a pretty good popcorn muncher. The set pieces were fun. Particularly enjoyed the sea portions - really lent themselves to the scale of the imax screen. I think the main problem with it is the repetitive nature of the source material. Go to an island, get fecked up, leg it, repeat. I did find it less tedious to watch than to read though.

Loved Circe, Calypso was hot as hell, Scylla and Polythemus were great, Patel was good as the first mate. Not a massive fan of Hathaway, think someone like Rebecca Ferguson could've done a better job. Damon was serviceable but nothing special. Holland as the wimpy kid was a bit on the nose.

The final fight was a bit daft, the sailing into the sunset too Hollywood. Also thought that if they were going to go the PTSD route then they should have leant more firmly into the debauchery of the sack of Troy. The horse was cool though.

7/10
 
I would go on tiers:

1) The Prestige, The Dark Knight (amazing)
2) Memento, Inception, The Odyssey (very good to great)
3) Oppenheimer, Batman Begins, Dunkirk, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Following, Tenet (ok to good)

Have not watched Insomnia.
 
Mine would be:
1. (great)
2. Oppenheimer/Prestige (excellent)
3. Batman Begins/Dark Knight/Memento (good)
4. Odyssey/Inception/Dunkirk/Dark Knight Rises (pretty good)
5. Insomnia/Interstellar (decent)
6. (average)
7. Tenet (below average)
 
A: Memento, The Dark Knight
B+: The Odyssey, Inception, The Prestige
B: Kloppenheimer, Interstellar, Batman Begins
C: Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk
D: Tenet
 
Last edited:
Revan said:
I would go on tiers:

1) The Prestige, The Dark Knight (amazing)
2) Memento, Inception, The Odyssey (very good to great)
3) Oppenheimer, Batman Begins, Dunkirk, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Following, Tenet (ok to good)

Have not watched Insomnia.
Click to expand...

Ekkie Thump said:
Mine would be:
1. (great)
2. Oppenheimer/Prestige (excellent)
3. Batman Begins/Dark Knight/Memento (good)
4. Odyssey/Inception/Dunkirk/Dark Knight Rises (pretty good)
5. Insomnia/Interstellar (decent)
6. (average)
7. Tenet (below average)
Click to expand...
The Prestige has also been my personal favourite of his for years as well, would like to see him try again at a smaller scale thing without the imax obsession but I think he's locked into it given he did the 3 hour biopic that way too.

Below that probably:
Oppenheimer/Odyssey/TDK/Memento
Batman Begins/Inception/Interstellar
Insomnia/Following/Dark Knight Rises (things I've seen once and don't really need to again)

Tenet and Dunkirk I've seen once but they passed me by at the time and I'm curious to watch again.
 
Ish said:
Surely everyone (everyone!) has Tenet at the bottom? :lol:.
Click to expand...
There's a bit of a cult following who insist it's among his best. I think these people may be incredibly wrong but I will give it another shot at some point.
 
Ubik said:
There's a bit of a cult following who insist it's among his best. I think these people may be incredibly wrong but I will give it another shot at some point.
Click to expand...
Watched it for the first time this year, and I think it is his weakest (which is still a 6 or 7 out of 10 IMO).

I really hope Nolan goes back to psychological trillers. Have The Prestige and Memento on his top 3 (and The Following is good considering the budget), but he has not gone back to that for almost 20 years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.