'The Odyssey': Movie Review

Though art is the depiction of a subject, it's also a reflection of the creator. Ask ten people to draw a horse, and you'll have ten different drawings--all roughly depicting the same thing, though the images will be far from identical.

There are few better examples of this principle in action than the Trojan War. Though we've been making art about the subject for thousands of years, you'd be hard-pressed to find two identical representations. Take these depictions of "the judgement of Paris," for example. It's the casus belli (cause of war), when Paris gave a golden apple to Aphrodite in exchange for the promise of Helen's love:

"The Judgement of Paris," artist unknown (attributed to "Master of the Argonauts"), late-15th century

"The Judgement of Paris," Sandro Botticelli, late-15th century

"The Judgement of Paris" by Lucas Cranach the Elder, late-15th century

Bear with me for a minute.

See the man on the left in the first picture? He's supposed to be Zeus, but doesn't he kind of look like the Pope? That's because art doesn't just tell us about the subject; it also tells us something about the artist. Hearing "supreme religious authority," the Master of the Argonauts clearly prioritized the Vatican over Mount Olympus.

And in the second painting, does that background look like ancient Greece? No way! The ship is more suited to Columbus than Odysseus, and the buildings are an awkward mash-up of Rome and Byzantium. Botticelli was one of the finest artists who ever lived, but he could only depict what he knew.

And...Sorry...Is Paris literally wearing knight's armor in the last image? Lucas Cranach the Elder evidently had one idea of a hero, and it was a knight in shining armor.

All of which is a polite way of saying that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is very...modern America.

Like so many artists before him, Nolan infused his own experiences and beliefs into Homer's tale.

In his version, Odysseus is racked with guilt for coming up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. He looks at the toppled towers of Troy (more alliteration in this sentence than the whole movie btw), and his face displays anguish for all he's unleashed. Not only that, Odysseus believes the horse was a violation of "Zeus's law," a cringe-inducing invented phrase that's part xenia (the guest-host relationship) and part Jesus' teachings to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

In the end, Odysseus moodily hypothesizes that because of his actions, their "age of bronze is collapsing" and nobody will be able to write anymore. I'm just lucky I was the only one in the theater; my scoffing was not inaudible. The dialogue was absolutely unbearable.

Some things I hated:

1) "Zeus's law" is not a thing - Listen, I'm fine with filmmakers taking creative liberties. I get that changes will need to be made. But this fundamentally changes the nature of the Greek gods! Nolan created a polytheistic version of Christianity, where the gods are arbiters of goodness. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE. The Greek gods were famously anthropomorphic. They fought, pulled pranks on each other, AND ATHENA HELPED ODYSSEUS WITH THE TROJAN HORSE. He wasn't being punished by the gods for doing it! He was encouraged! When a Trojan priest, Laocoon, expressed suspicion about Greeks bearing gifts, Athena sent a sea serpent to eat him and his sons, silencing any other doubts among the Trojans.

Making Odysseus feel guilty for the rest of his life about the Trojan Horse is a betrayal of his character, and it fundamentally changes the mythos of ancient Greece. Creative liberties are fine in my book. Fundamental changes...not so much.

"Laocoon and his sons," attributed to Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, 1st century BC (restored)

2) Changing Odysseus' character - Similar to how "Zeus's law" fundamentally transforms the nature of the gods, his changes also strip away so much of what makes Odysseus unique. In the conflict with the Cyclops, one of the most memorable elements of Homer's story is Odysseus' decision to tell the Cyclops his name was "Noman," so when the creature's friends ask who blinded him, it sounds like, "No man! No man blinded me!" It was a show-don't-tell example of Odysseus' cleverness (whereas Nolan just told us how clever Odysseus is ad infinitum). Then, as Odysseus sails safely away, his pride gets the better of him. He shouts:

"If anyone asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say that it was Odysseus that blinded it, the sacker of cities, son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca!”

THIS is his undoing in the story. Unbeknownst to him, the Cyclops is Poseidon's son, and Poseidon doesn't forgive and forget.

But in Nolan's retelling, the Cyclops is basically mute. This might've been a blessing, given how awful the rest of the dialogue was. The "no man" part was totally omitted. And rather than yell his name in triumph as he sails away, revealing his fatal flaw, Matt Damon just stabs the Cyclops out of spite as they leave the cave. Odysseus goes from a bona fide trickster with a pride problem to an admittedly great soldier who loses his temper after seeing his men get eaten. He just didn't seem like the same person.

3) The dialogue - I understand that adaptations can't always be verbatim. I REALLY DO. But shouldn't adaptations at least pay homage to the original? The Odyssey is full of florid language, epic similes, alliteration, elements of eloquence...The Greeks invented the elements of eloquence! But Nolan's bards say things like, "A man. A war. A trick. A thought." When Tom Holland said, "I'm a man, mom!" part of me died. He sounded just like Buster Bluth.

4) The grayness. The cybermen. More on that here.

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I don't want to rant too much because I'm fully aware this movie is better than anything I could ever do in a million years.

So here were some things I liked:

1) The visual imagery of Odysseus and his men entering the cave

2) "Tell Sinon I gave you back your shame." Despite the culture war stuff, this was actually a decent (if totally invented) subplot.

3) The scene inside the horse. This is the sort of thing that makes adaptations great. We never really "see" this in Homer, so it's the perfect opportunity to show something new while remaining faithful to the story.

4) Calypso's fishnet-inspired outfit

5) The scattered chronology, which also felt consistent with the spirit of the book

6) Creating a "save the cat" situation between Eumaeus and Odysseus' faithful dog. It changed some details from the book, but accomplished a lot of storytelling in a short period of time, giving us a reason to like Eumaeus (in storytelling, they say if you have a character "save a cat" early on, people will like them more), and including the wonderful story of Odysseus' dog remaining faithful for 20 years.

7) The fact that somebody spent $250 million bringing ancient literature back into the conversation.

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The historian Tom Holland--who is not the same person as the actor Tom Holland--says that people living in the West today are "swimming in the waters of Christianity" whether they are religious or not. Even if they're atheists, their very notions of right and wrong are rooted in the Bible. Nolan's film seems to take this moral framework for granted, projecting distinctly modern assumptions onto the past.

Try telling an ancient Spartan that eugenics is reprehensible, or explaining an Ottoman sultan that castrating their African slaves is horrific. "How else will we stay fighting fit if we keep the weaklings?" the Spartans would've asked. And a sultan would inquire, "Well, which other slaves can we trust to guard the harem?"

Though I'm verging into the philosophical, trying to point out how Nolan's very existence as an American man in 2026 is undoubtedly reflected in his art the same way it was in Botticelli's...

I really just hated this movie because it changed the nature of the Greek gods (whom I've always found delightful), it changed Odysseus' personality (I object to character transformation in an adaptation on principle), and the monosyllabic dialogue made me want to throw myself off Scylla's cliffs.

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