The Odyssey

[MillieDynamite]

You make me almost want to go see it. Didn't appreciate the wisecrack about IMAX, coming from a family that supported me from their labors in a small town, small theater! Boo IMAX! Actual, IMAX overwhelms me. After all, I'm a tiny, itty bitty person, with itty bitty titties, feeties, and handsies. I might watch this on streaming thanks to you.

I finally saw the movie. I liked it. I wasn't sure I would. I hoped to, but had hesitation because of some of the reviews I read.

There have been a lot of good points made about the movie in this thread, good and bad, so I'll try not to repeat them but add a few things:

1. First, I didn't think it was woke at all. The movie makes no effort to present a visually faithful replica of the Ancient Greek world. It might as well be set in Northern California. It's a multi-racial cast, but I didn't see any political message in it. Nolan decided he wanted his "sword and sandal" epic to have a contemporary American feel (as opposed to the usual Britified epics we usually get). The racial diversity, like the use of American English vernacular, plays into that.

2. I liked Nolan's thematic update of the original story. "Zeus's Law" (hospitality) is laid on pretty thick, but I think it works because it ties the story together thematically and dramatically, and it makes the ending more poignant and more acceptable (I always thought the revenge against the suitors in the original story was a bit of overkill, but in this version you really want those bastards to get it, especially Antinous, well played as a smarmy creep by Robert Pattinson). Nolan also turns the epic into something more like Odysseus's personal psychodrama, which I think works as a way of unifying the story and making it more sensible to a modern audience.

3. Visually, it looks good, but it didn't overwhelm me. I like that Nolan maximizes the use of practical effects. The movie feels "real" despite all the fantastical things that happen. But it's a bit dark and somber. I would think the Ancient Greek World would generally be bathed in light and bright and colorful. I appreciated seeing it in an IMAX theater.

4. I liked Anne Hathaway. I always do. If she were my queen I'd make an extra effort to get home to her too. And watch out, suitors.

5. Matt Damon was better than I expected as Odysseus. I like Damon but thought he might not have enough weight for this role. This is a wearier and more grizzled Damon than we've ever seen before. He's wracked by guilt but still crafty and confident in himself. I thought he did a nice job.

6. My least favorite thing about the film was the musical score. It was written by Ludwig Goranson, who wrote the (IMO better) musical score for Oppenheimer and who shares a lot of traits with Hanz Zimmer. See Penny Thompson's comments on the music above, which are more erudite on the subject than mine but with which I completely agree. There's a trend of moving away from more melodic musical scores to what I call "walls of sound." This is very much a wall of sound score. At times it was too loud, at times too lugubrious, and at times it made it hard to hear what the actors were saying. Put it this way: there's nothing you can hum afterward.

But overall, I enjoyed it. Not a perfect film, but very much a Nolan film -- a movie with a characteristic Nolanesque blend of popcorn fun and intelligent working of themes and ideas. I'm glad I saw it.