THE ODYSSEY. Good movie. Christopher Nolan (executive producer: ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE) gives us his take on the ancient poem, as filtered through his heavy duty filmatism, shot on IMAX film, with some of his beloved non-linear structure, a ridiculously stacked cast and a weird Ludwig Göransson (THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN) score. It’s classic Nolan material but with the welcome addition of some monsters and horror, because it’s set in “a time of apparent magic.”
Nolan has joined the category of Spielberg and Eastwood, where I’ll see anything he makes and know I’ll probly like it even if it’s something I wouldn’t otherwise be interested in. Even if it seems like homework. Obviously THE ODYSSEY sounds like more of a popcorn movie than DUNKIRK or OPPENHEIMER, but I sure do feel like I’m supposed to already have opinions about Homer and epic poems. By the time I saw the movie the discourse revolved around a lengthy takedown in the London Review of Books by classicist Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation Nolan cites as an influence. But even regular movie critics seem to be full of thoughts about The Odyssey and The Iliad and what not.
This is all valuable, but I must say up front that I have none of that background. Instead I come to THE ODYSSEY as someone who actually liked the remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS and paid to see such Fantasy Sword Dude movies as KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, BEOWULF (in IMAX 3D), CONAN THE BARBARIAN 2011, HERCULES 2014, WARCRAFT, GODS OF EGYPT, and IN THE LOST LANDS, as well as Elevated Fantasy Sword Dude movies THE GREEN KNIGHT and THE NORTHMAN. And I enjoyed most of those. Not to brag. (read the rest of this shit…)
