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The Odyssey (2026) Was Not Particularly Good (lemmy.world)
submitted 23 hours ago by to c/movies@lemmy.world
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WARNING: Spoilers ahead...on a story 2.5 millennia old.

Finally got around to watching it this weekend. After the Mt. Everest sized stack of cash it made and all of the glowing reviews, honestly, it was pretty underwhelming.

First thing's first. The dialogue was AAAAAAAAAWFUL. Seriously? What the hell? It sounded like I was listening to dialogue written by a small team of junior high students. And not the junior high students that take honors English. I was fine with the choice to do American accents, although I would have preferred British accents for a movie like this cuz it just sounds classier. But that wasn't it. It was the actual words used by the actors to communicate to each other. It was just so dumbed down and sounded so boring and basic. I'm assuming it was a choice made on purpose to maybe connect with as many modern English speakers as possible, but it largely killed the film for me. I was actually kind of shocked how bad the dialogue was in this movie.

Another thing that kind of bothered me, although not nearly to the same degree as the dialogue, was over-acting. I felt like there were some performances that were dialed up a little too much. To the point where it kind of took me out of the film because I felt like I was watching an actor trying to shoot for an oscar a bit too hard. I think the main culprit on this one was Anne Hathaway. Alternatively, I think there was also an issue of under-acting. I'll get to that below.

Pacing. Despite having 3 hours to tell the story, I kind of felt like some things were skipped over too quickly. Other things that they spent too much time on could have been shortened to allow more time for things I think deserved the time more. Scenes didn't really punch the way I thought they should. In the book the scene where he comes back after 20 years and his dog is still alive but dies as he touches it and it recognizes him is really impactful, but it was just kind of glossed over in the movie with little to no emotion from Matt Damon. Same with Odysseus finding out Calypso had trapped him on the island for years. Not a lot of emotion there. Actually, I think the only scene Damon really sold was the siren scene. He did the opposite of over-act for most of the movie.

The film looks great. Gotta give it that. The cinematography is solid. And I'm not saying the film was bad (other than the dialogue which was truly awful). I just don't get the massive hype. Honestly, I still prefer the 90s made for TV version with Armand Assante. I think the dialogue was better. The acting was better. The pacing was better even though it's almost exactly the same length as this new version. And they did it without the star-studded cast the new film has. Obviously the new version has better special effects, and I do think overall better cinematography. I acknowledge maybe there's some rose-tinted glasses thing going for me with the 90s version as I grew up with it.

I guess I'd give this new version a B. Just a mid-range B. With a special handwritten in red ink note in the margins that the dialogue is an F.

Ok, crucify me now.

EDIT: You know what, I'd like to add a few things I did like, beyond the cinematography. I liked Odysseus' monologue about the siren's song. I liked his monologue about his point of view of his role in the war when he's talking to his wife. I liked that Athena ended up being a ghost of someone he watched get murdered at Troy (although I do not like Zendaya as an actress).

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[–] 7 points 3 hours ago (6 children)

So, I was going to respond to a comment OP made, but decided to expand on it beyond that context. I think way folks may be missing is what the Odyssey is, and that's where the comment started j

As far as that goes, the Odyssy was never realistic. It's an epic, written long after the events would have happened, as a form of entertainment rather than historiography. It's supposed to be unrealistic because it's the equivalent of a graphic novel.

The characters are meant to be damn near demigods. They're the distant past heroes, their stories told orally for generations, then written down in a new form. It simply isn't about realism. If it was, the sirens and the cyclops wouldn't be there.

You have to look at Odysseus as captain america, or black panther. Not quite superhuman in the way of someone like Hercules (the Marvel version or the older myths), but peak human capable of feats that would destroy "regular" people to do just once.

Thus, trying to filter any version of the Odyssey as historical fails. You can't make a realistic movie of it because it's never been realistic, nor the Iliad that precedes it. These are stories of gods, men, and those in between.

Trying to compare it to something like Band of Brothers, where you find a mostly reality grounded story that's a fictional pastiche set during a historical event, just isn't giving credit to the source material.

This needs to be compared to Clash of the Titans.

The immersion break of "dad" is more about the audience's expectations of any far past setting using theatrical formality than any unrealistic placement.

Think about it. If you see your father fall to the ground, grasping his chest, what are you going to scream? Father? Dad? Daddy? Papa? Most people don't call their parents mother and father unless speaking about them distantly. Even then it isn't universal.

The choice in terms of movie values is a difficult one, because Nolan has to be aware that the audience is going to be jarred by their preconceptions when a character supposedly alive over a thousand years ago doesn't have a British accent, and a posh one at that. But that's no more realistic than dad. It's a preconception, not an objective and direct translation of what someone in the time the Odyssey is set in would have said.

People habe suggested "oh brother where art thou" as a superior version of the Odyssey. I don't disagree, but I would point directly to the language used in that movie. It's vernacular English, and not even particularly accurate for the setting it's in. The accents aren't realistic, they're as overblown as a theatrical British one. But we set that aside because the film is amazing in its own rights.

I'm not saying the Nolan Odyssey is a perfect film. Hell, I even agree that it doesn't measure up to its hype. But I think OP's criticisms are as much or more about the preconceptions of the moviegoers as the movie itself. I would agree with the rating of B though! It has flaws (and one of the comments made mentions the jank that's due to IMAX filming necessities where you can only record so much at once points to the one I notice most in IMAX movies), and it has a very Nolan style. Nolan isn't really who I would pick to bring the Odyssey to the screen because you do end up with a little too much style creep, but I also think it's a worthy addition to the litany of greek myth based movies.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

    The immersion break of “dad” is more about the audience’s expectations of any far past setting using theatrical formality than any unrealistic placement.

    Did the OP edit his post? There's no mention of "dad". Only that the entirety of the dialog was bad.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 hours ago*

    Not the commenter you're replying to, nor have I seen the film, but I've seen the dad line complained about a lot. But a lot of it seems like bandwagon hating something popular (I don't mean OP's post which is thoughtful)

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago* (2 children)

    It simply isn't about realism.

    Sure movies don't have to be realistic, but they have to be entertaining.

    Having era authentic production can be a part of what appeals to people.

    The immersion break of "dad" is more about the audience's expectations of any far past setting using theatrical formality than any unrealistic placement.

    He's not complaining about that. The movie has straight up some atrocious on the face dialogue. It has little subtext and leaves little for the mind to imagine. Good dialogue is the opposite. People like to infer what the character is saying over what they actually mean.

    And from what I can tell, if it was trying to emulate the illiad's style of prose, it fails at it.

    Nolan has some really good movies, but I'd get his brother or another writer to edit his writing for the big screen.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Era authentic?

    It's the Odyssey, which era? The era when the Trojan war was supposed to have occurred? Homer wrote his version? When his version was translated to English? And which translation?

    Neither the Iliad or Odyssey are historiography. So any film based on them in inherently incapable of authenticity. They're fiction, written so long ago that it's hard to be certain when the events of the story are supposed to be from. Homer, if he was the actual author and stuck with some kind of accurate oral writ, would have been writing through the lens of time as much as Nolan did. Homeric descriptions of combat were, and I'm saying this as someone that's trained in fighting of various sorts, laughable. They're absolutely not more accurate than any movie based on Greek mythology I've ever seen.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 hours ago*

    Well there's evidence the siege of Troy actually happened in the bronze age. Homers illiad and odyssey are also definitely refering to the bronze age era.

    My point being - It should been at least interesting. I found it boring to see the same greek armor being used for everything, when we know they were a diverse bunch, let alone for something that supposedly took place thousands of years before. You wouldn't have complained if Nolan used era authentic armor, but it would have added to the charm.

    Homeric descriptions of combat were, and I'm saying this as someone that's trained in fighting of various sorts, laughable.

    Yeah, it's a myth. To be honest it fails in my eyes there as well. It's not a very epic myth, everything feels so small. I wanted to see a grand Troy being seiged by hundreds of thousands of people. I get that it's trying to be more grounded, but I thought it wasn't supposed to be realistic.

    If you are going to represent an epic, why not go all the way? Why is it grounded in only some places but doesnt care to be grounded in history?

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