Movie Review: The Odyssey
Author: Pastor Rick
I had a choice. I could see The Odyssey in IMAX with regular seats, or I could watch the standard version from one of those comfortable recliners.
Christopher Nolan filmed the entire movie for IMAX. I chose the comfy seat over his artistic vision.
The movie runs close to three hours. I am fifty-three years old, and my chair held my pop.
I liked the movie, and I thought it was worth the three hours. Anyone who enjoys mythology, practical effects, and old stories told on a huge scale should find plenty here.
I rate movies using a highly scientific candy scale. From worst to best, the ratings are Good & Plenty, Tootsie Pop, Skittles, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
Entertainment: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
Family Movie Night: Tootsie Pop
The story comes from Homer, in case ninth-grade English was a long time ago. Odysseus spends ten years trying to get home after the Trojan War. Storms, monsters, gods, bad choices, and nearly everything else in the ancient world stands in his way.
Matt Damon plays Odysseus as a tired man who has carried the war home with him, even though he has not made it home yet. Anne Hathaway gives Penelope the strength of a woman who has held her family and household together for twenty years. Tom Holland plays their son, Telemachus, who is trying to decide what kind of man he will become.
The movie is rated R for violence and some language. The language is limited, but the fighting is frequent. Several deaths are rough, and the monsters can be frightening. There is also brief nudity and a small amount of implied sexual content.
Younger children should skip this one. Mature teenagers who can handle the violence and monsters may enjoy it, especially if they are currently reading the poem in school. The movie could help them see the characters and ideas from a different angle.
They should also understand that this is Nolan’s version. It is neither historically accurate nor especially faithful to Homer’s poem.
There are fewer battles than I expected from a movie about a Greek warrior. Nolan takes his time with the journey, the family story, and the stranger parts of the poem. It feels long because it is long, but I never felt as though the story had come to a stop.
Many of the creatures were built and placed in front of the camera instead of being created entirely on a computer. Polyphemus, the Cyclops, is especially creepy.
He is basically a giant puppet. That is not what makes him creepy, although puppets are already pretty much nightmare fuel.
The scene that bothered me most involves Samantha Morton’s Circe turning Odysseus’ men into pigs. She molds their faces with her hands while the change takes place.
While I am telling you that a scene was scary, remember that I am also the same guy who got scared of the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer back in the day.
My history-major eyebrow went up when the movie mentioned the Sea Peoples. They never appear in Homer’s poem, though they were real groups connected with the upheaval that struck the Mediterranean world around 1200 BCE. That is close to the traditional setting of the Trojan War.
I did not expect them to show up in The Odyssey.
There has also been debate about the armor, especially the helmets with their large horsehair crests.
My “scholarly” judgment is that they look cool. And isn’t that the most important thing?
Agamemnon, in particular, looks almost like a superhero. The armor may belong more to Nolan’s imagination than the Bronze Age, but I understand the choice. It looks impressive on a giant screen.
Odysseus is trying to return to a wife he has left alone for twenty years and a son he has never really known. Penelope has spent those years holding their home together while a crowd of men camps inside, eats her food, and pressures her to marry one of them.
Charlize Theron plays Calypso, the nymph who keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years. She offers to make him immortal.
He turns her down. He would rather return to a mortal wife, a grown son, and a house that probably needs some work.
There is a sermon in there!
Damon’s Odysseus also carries guilt over leaving Penelope alone and over what he helped do to the city of Troy. Homer’s Odysseus did not seem to lose much sleep over Troy. He wanted people to remember his victories because that was part of the ancient idea of greatness.
The guilt comes from Nolan. I liked the change. It makes Odysseus feel more human.
One line stayed with me after the movie: Treat other people the way you want them to treat you.
The movie calls it Zeus’s Law, but that is a phrase created for the movie. The ancient Greeks did have a strong tradition called xenia, which described how guests and hosts were expected to treat one another. Zeus was believed to protect strangers and enforce those duties. Nolan stretches that ancient idea until it sounds a great deal like the Golden Rule.
Jesus says it this way in Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”
It is always good to see Jesus making an appearance in unexpected places.
