1.Incompetence. Nolan’s direction of the effects, the vistas, the action and the technical aspects of “The Odyssey” is interesting and often dazzling. Not the sound, though: the early dialogue scenes are muddy and difficult to hear, and the sound volume contrasts are self-indulgent and even painful. Yes, that’s also AMC’s fault, but a director must be cognizant of how his or her work will be shown.
1.Nolan’s direction of his cast, however, is terrible, even amateurish. When a competent actor like Matt Damon sleepwalks through a starring role, as he does here, that’s the director’s failing. Moreover, Damon’s Odysseus never seems intelligent, and that’s the hero’s primary characteristic according to Homer. We know Damon can play smart characters: he burst on the scene as a young genius in “Good Will Hunting.” With his face half obscured in a messy beard, Damon is also almost expressionless. Nobody else is much better, either, at least in Part 1. Anne Hathaway, a favorite of mine, gives some shockingly hacky deliveries. Zendaya, as the O’s protector/consultant Athena, has a frozen face: Can she act? Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom, and she sure doesn’t show it. My experience as a stage director taught me that few dumb actors can play intelligent characters convincingly.
Spoiler Alert: I should add here that the big surprise at the end of the movie is that Athena isn’t really Athena. More on that conceit later.
Which reminds me: Nolan’s casting was also unforgivably inept, although in such situations it is hard to say whether better direction could have made such casting work. Casting very black Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, as I have written already, is not inherently wrong, but her performance is wildly over-the top, even hysterical, and double casting her as Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife who slaughters him in “The Oresteia”(which has nothing to do with “The Odyssey,” but is shoehorned into the film anyway) makes no sense. [ Another bad direction note: At one point a huge, Darth Vader-like figure appears in the middle of the Greek army. Apparently this was supposed to be Agamemnon. How was an audience supposed to know that?] Clytemnestra was Helen’s half-sister, not her twin sister. It literally feels like the double role was contrived just to make it worth Nyong’o’s time. Helen and her twin do overact exactly as egregiously. Charlize Theron, who can act, plays Calypso almost as dead faced as Zendaya. She looks stunning, as always, and she could have made a great Calypso, if she had anything to do.
The most incompetent casting of all, however, was sticking poor trans-male Eliot Page in a small role in which he looks just silly. Ellen Page was an impressive actress, so I assume Eliot can act too, though I don’t know what roles a 5’1″ male with an androgynous voice can play credibly—certainly not this one. Page is also almost expressionless as Sinon in two scenes, the latter in which his face is covered in mud. Sinon is a character in “The Aeneid,” and adds nothing to Homer’s tale. Was Nolan virtue-signaling to the trans mob at the expense of the rest of the production? Was he trying to meet the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences DEI quotas?
My final note on the director’s incompetence is the length. There’s no justification for it. I have no intrinsic objection to long movies; heck, I’ve directed four hour plays and musicals, arguing that a play or movie should be as long as it needs to be to tell a great story well. However, directing a long movie takes skill: once the audience starts looking at its watches and begins to think, “Theoretically, this could go on forever,” you’re cooked.
And speaking of long, yikes. I thought I could get this slog done in one post. I was wrong. See you on the other side…
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** My homage to the late Red Buttons, one of the stars of the first “The Poseidon Adventure” (The Odyssey has be thinking about Poseidon.) Invited, in his dotage, to see the remake of his famous disaster film, he and his caretaker encountered a reporter as he left the theater. “Mr Buttons! You had a memorable performance in the first version of “Poseidon.” What did you think of the movie. “It stinks!” Red spat out, and walked away.
Ethics Alarms 
Clymenestra is Agamemnon’s wife right?
Right. Not Achilles. Wrong “A.” (Achilles was gay.) %$#@!. Proofed the post twice and missed it both times. FIXED. Thanks.
“Achilles was gay.”
Achilles also had a son and wanted to keep Briseis. He was bi-sexual, if anything.
(Pet Peeve: I hate it when people look at the ancients and think they thought about things the way we did. “Gay” was not really a thing. Closest you come to that is Aristophanes in the Symposium.)
-Jut
All of “The Odyssey” fits your pet peeve: egregious presentism.
Criticism accepted: by current definition the Big A was bi-sexual or gender-fluid, but he did not have a wife, and clearly the love of his life was Patroclus. Better?
I too went with open eyes and hope. I did enjoy the cinematography of the “Aegean”. I agree the dialogue was muddled. What happen to sound technicians?
The hype up about the casting was a nothing burger for me. Both were minor parts with minimum screen time.
I missed what I call the verticalaity of the relationship between Odyseus and the deities. There was none. The horozontal relationship between Odyseus and his men was also lacking . He dismissed them both with one line-“Every man for himself!” ( or something like that, remeber I couldn’t hear the dialogue).
The suitors for Penelope were just stock background characters. Their presence on the screen was irrelevant until the closing bit of action.
I do wish i could find and listen to an independnent sound track. i read that was intersting, but again could not make it out.
Since there were a lot of audio issues in this project and other recent cinema events, I hope Hollywood would give diction and propjection lessons to the stars. If not either provide captioning or a libretto.
We are told that Eliot’s role was the moral center of the entire movie, see, because he symbolizes O’s guilt over what war made him do.
The hype up about the casting was a nothing burger for me.
Advisors: “You’re making a bronze age hack and slash?”
Nolan: “Yep”
Advisors: “You know those are right-wing coded. You’ll cut out half the viewing audience who refuses to watch anything even remotely smelling like the right-wing. You get that, don’t you?”
Nolan: “Don’t worry about it. It’s taken care of.”
*drops some minor information about casting*
Chronically online rightwingers: “SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH!”
Nolan: “See? Now the leftwingers who can’t help but watch something that makes the insane right go crazy will dump billions into this movie *AND* normie rightwingers were always going to watch the movie regardless. And wait until you see what critics are going to say.”
Critics: “Nolan is brilliant! There’s never been a greater movie ever. Ever.”
Advisors: “Surely are are the greatest director.”
Zendaya, as the O’s protector/consultant Athena, has a frozen face: Can she act?
Her RBF is her whole schtick. I don’t know what’s appealing about her at all, and for some reason she seems to get great movie roles. She plays the same person in everything she does. She’s not particularly pretty. If it wasn’t for Spider-Man, I doubt people would know her at all. To be fair, I hear she’s excellent in Europhia, but I’m not watching that to find out.
There should be a larger conversation about her RBF and all the actor’s flat affects in general. Not even just this movie, but alot of movies and society in general.
I vaguely recall seeing somewhere that RBF is loosely correlated with sociopathy or psychopathy. I’ll have to look. RBF has become a running joke among women (and men) of the current generation because *SO MANY* have it.
But if it is a genuine window into someone’s psychological/spiritual constitution, we shouldn’t be laughing. We live in an increasingly sickening society.
I had to look up RBF since I had no idea what that was. Now I do.
I am glad I was in good company
Jack: “I will issue a disclaimer: It is possible that the second half of “The Odyssey” redeems the first half. If so, out of the hundreds of films I have seen over my life, it would be the first movie that accomplished that feat after such a soporific, pompous, annoying beginning. It would be like “The Terror of Tiny Town” suddenly turning into “High Noon.””
Closest I could come up with is 2001: A Space Odyssey, but only because the beginning was so slow and self-indulgent, while the ending was a bit less so, and even somewhat interesting.
-Jut
“Closest I could come up with is 2001: A Space Odyssey, but only because the beginning was so slow and self-indulgent“
Only movie during which I fell asleep….I was 13.
PWS
I know Stanley Kubrick. I admire Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick was a genius. Christopher Nolan is no Stanley Kubrick.
That said, I thought 2001 was Kubrick’s most over-rated movie, and I detested the ending.
Kubrick is one of those directors that I will watch the movie if they made it (though I have not seen Dull Metal Jacket).
Same is true of the Coen brothers (though I have not seen True Grit (was going to do a double feature with the John Wayne version, but only got through the first one).
Same with Terry Gilliam (though I have not seen The Man Who Killed Don Quixote).
I think Kubrick’s greatness come from his technical skills and attention to detail. Nolan’s strength is maybe less about his technique and more about the stories he tells. I have seen a lot of his movies, but not because of him; they were interesting stories. Memento, Insomnia, Inception, Interstellar were all rewardingly confusing in the way they drew you in to the story; he kind of went off the rails with Tenet, which I have successfully started watching 3 times.
-Jut
If you approach Full Metal Jacket as if it’s two movies cobbled together like Frankenstein’s monster and only watch the “first movie”, it’s enjoyable.
That’s exactly correct. The first segment is so excellent that it almost excuses the second part, which is inexplicably bad for Kubrick.
Politicizing a story isn’t necessarily a killer of a film, as long as it’s done lightly and with tact. Tarantino often succeeds here the way he criticizes U.S. drug policy.
Lethal Weapon did so subtlety, with anti -gun posters sprinkled through shots, but making “cop killer bullets” a central plot and action device was pushing it.
Runaway Jury and John Q both just simply jumped the shark. Their plots were so distorted by the message that you’d need middle-school understanding of the world to possess the ability to suspend disbelief to make these two watchable.
Sully suffered the same way, whoever decided to villainize the NTSB in order to fabricate tension just… Stop. Work somewhere else. You don’t need to make the inquest Sully’s heroic action.
I thought The Day After Tomorrow did it well. The film wasn’t overly preachy about climate change, and was easy enough to sit back and enjoy like similar disasters of is period like War of the Worlds and Armageddon.
I think your jaundiced eye observation is worth contemplating.
On the one hand, I do think markedly dumbing down Odysseus is suspiciously consistently with the woke trend of nullifying/emasculating men.
On the other hand, it’s a legitimate directorial choice, along with the anti-war/PTSD messaging, even if I’d prefer it not associated with Homer’s epic.
it’s a legitimate director choice IF IT WORKS and if the screenplay’s dialogue doesn’t sound like it was written by a bot.
“Zendaya, as the O’s protector/consultant Athena, has a frozen face: Can she act? Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom, and she sure doesn’t show it.”
I think Zendaya either cannot act, or has been typecast as the same soulless streak as Jennifer Lawrence, Kristen Stewart, and Brie Larson. There are a whole lot of leading ladies in Hollywood right now who’s entire resume is “can play moody hot girl with resting bitch face”.
“Ellen Page was an impressive actress, so I assume Eliot can act too, though I don’t know what roles a 5’1″ male with an androgynous voice can play credibly—certainly not this one.”
Was she? I guess we’re talking about Juno? I dunno. I think that’s generous.
Funny story, I mentioned Kristen Stewart and you mentioned Charlize Theron, who both played in The Huntsman movies. I remember vividly watching the first one and talking to a friend watching it with me about how different these actresses were: All the range and skill and versatility of Theron beside Stewart, who must inject full-facial botox on the daily to get that little range of facial expression. I watched the first 10 minutes, and when the Huntsman showed her how to fight (Block. Stab.), I said: “She’s a one-trick pony. That’s going to be her entire personality for this movie: Block. Stab. She meets someone she doesn’t like: Block. Stab. The final confrontation with the queen is going to end with a Block and a Stab.” It was insanely amusing how correct I ended up being.
https://x.com/mericamemed/status/2085130980302758053?s=46
Spot on. Actually, the guy is better than Zendaya
Slight tangent, do you think the cartoon, The Critic, stole Red Button’s “It Stinks” as his catch-phrase. I was not familiar with Red Buttons, but The Critic used it every week.
-Jut
Red May have stolen it from “The Critic.”
I made it through the whole thing. I came away with a “meh” rating by the end. I think maybe there was more action in the second half that hid the dull performances better.
I usually really like watching Matt Damon movies. That may be the first time I’ve been bored watching him, and I was also surprised how flat Charlize Theron’s acting was. During the first half I was thinking how bad the directing must have been to make those two so uninteresting to watch.
I did enjoy Tom Holland’s performance. I thought he was by far the highlight of the movie in terms of his acting.
Interesting. Rotten Tomatoes summary is 94% and 97% which usually indicates an entertaining experience. I am not reading that at all here. So should Danny and I go to enjoy our shared popcorn and Coke? Or is this a total waste of time?
I’d take the 3 hours back if I could get them. The only advantage of having gone is being informed enough to participate in the discussion about it. For sheer entertainment value, there’s a million other things you could do. I’d choose Cheers reruns or rewatching one of the Bourne movies over this.
Rotten Tomatoes is infamous for being rigged, as with the distaff “Ghostbusters.” But obviously some people like the movie. They are just wrong, that’s all….
For Rotten Tomatoes scores, I always have to remind myself that their ratings are based on a binary evaluation of a movie. 97% isn’t actually an A-plus; it just shows that the movie critics nearly all decided it fell on the good side of the good-bad binary. The most I can surmise from a 94% or 97% score is that The Odyssey is likely worth seeing and I wouldn’t consider it a waste of my time and money.
When I see a movie like Disney’s Cars getting a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s easy to look at that score and think, “Wow! This must be the best children’s movie ever.” Really, it’s a reflection that movie critics unanimously agree that Cars is good and not bad.
But “The Odyssey” really IS bad. It makes audiences, and kids especially, more ignorant, less ethical,less able to process drama, and less able to competently judge popular culture.
I haven’t seen the 2026 version of The Odyssey and probably won’t, unless it comes out on a streaming service that I happen to already have. My reply is just about how I generally interpret Rotten Tomatoes ratings- that it’s easy to read too much into a high score.
I would be interested in rewatching the 1997 tv miniseries version of The Odyssey, though. My high school English teacher showed it to us and my memory is that it was interesting.
I’m a whole mixed bag on it.
Comment of the Day. And I promise, no more “Odyssey” once I have submitted to the “Equal Time” rule.
I’m glad you posted on this. I was initially disinclined to see the movie because of reports of it being nothing but a DEI-fest. I started to revise that on later information claiming it was an overall decent movie, with minimal effects from casting choices. You’ve saved me a few bucks by kicking it back into the “Maybe I’ll watch it on YouTube TV if/when it shows up there and I’m not organizing my sock drawer” category.
Thanks!