Spoilers ahead for “The Odyssey.”
At the Regal Movie Theater at the Irvine Spectrum where my best friend snapped a photo of my wildly confused face as Odysseus and his men went to face the Lastrygonians in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” (2026). I couldn’t help squinting my eyes as if to clarify the perfectly crystal clear scene playing out right in front of me. My vision was perfectly fine. My ability to identify a Lastrygonian was not.
I am all for a Greek mythology retelling. Why, I religiously consume Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s “EPIC: The Musical,” making it into his top 0.04% listeners on my Spotify Wrapped and have read every “Percy Jackson” and “Heroes of Olympus” novel. I have voiced my critiques on the extremely lackluster retelling of the “The Iliad,” otherwise known as “The Song of Achilles,” by Madeline Miller—although I do admit “Circe” was quite an interesting read.
“The Odyssey,” Homer’s epic, is a story which has been close to me ever since I can remember. To me, it was never just a story of a Greek hero fighting monsters, braving the unknown and reuniting with his love after twenty long years. In fact, when reading Emily Wilson’s wonderful translation of “The Odyssey” (2017)—which I have read at least twice in this lifetime—I found that it is an incredibly dark, twisted tale, a story of tragedy, manipulation, ruthlessness and a repertoire of many more depressing synonyms. At the same time, the beauty of this epic is the battle between all forms of love, loyalty and perseverance.
In adapting a seemingly infinite poem with many themes, Nolan did one thing correctly: He decided to highlight one. To our misfortune as the consumer, the consequence was to repeatedly hear about Zeus’ law at least once every twenty minutes. The preferred Greek term for this is “Xenia,” which I personally feel was wrongly re-written into the modern day golden rule we are introduced to in our elementary school classrooms. I believe it is more accurate to focus on the guest-host relationship—upholding certain moral, ethical and religious obligations to one another. Watering it down to simply treating others how you want to be treated does not do this Ancient Greek concept justice, and it opposes the very nature of most moments it’s used in the film.
While my critiques of this film are endless, I do think the manner in which Nolan represented the deities of this poem was agreeable—to a certain extent. In terms of Zeus and Posiedon, representing them through nature’s consequences rather than portraying—for lack of a better phrase—some guy, made the heroes’ struggles seem much more divine and cruel.
However, my qualms begin with the portrayal of Athena. This goddess of war, or rather a “Warrior of the Mind” (“EPIC” fans, I summon you all) was stripped down to a figment of a man’s guilt. One of the three principal virgin goddesses was nothing more than a hallucination of a past war, a past life, a past regret. This contrasts with her portrayal in Wilson’s translation as a mentor, a friend, someone who recognizes herself as a mere human. She’s prideful, mischievous, perhaps even shifty. To be honest, I was more upset that Zendaya was not given a larger role as Athena.
Even with the varied representation of the gods, the Cyclops scene was almost done perfectly. I appreciated the thought put into the design of this beast without the usage of CGI, from the use of animatronics and puppetry to the use of a real medical condition, cyclopia, in the making of the design. In that scene, I truly felt like I was inside that cave as one of Odysseus’s unsuspecting men, with a significantly low chance of surviving another day.
With all of this, I fear I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the various issues I have with the film. In all honesty, I admit the cinematography was outstanding, the acting was brilliant and the flow of the story was incredible. But as someone who has these myths and legends tattooed into her memory, the disappointment of this overly hyped release had me, well, floored.
This odyssey wasn’t a journey I wholeheartedly enjoyed. Then again, I suppose Odysseus didn’t enjoy it much either. Yet, this movie didn’t transport me to the rocky shores of Ithaca, nor was I touched by the twenty-year-long journey a man took to reunite with his family. At the end of the day, this really was not my kind of odyssey.