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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nFew film adaptations require more ambition than Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d the quintessential epic. And perhaps no filmmaker has been more ambitious this millennium than Christopher Nolan, the man who told an entire story backward with \u201cMemento,\u201d conquered the superhero genre with his \u201cDark Knight\u201d trilogy, and dominated the Oscars three years ago with \u201cOppenheimer.\u201d If anyone can handle a challenge as vast as \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d it\u2019s Nolan. I can report that he indeed succeeds in the challenge\u2026 to a degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This being a Nolan movie, it should come as no surprise that the movie plays around a lot with chronology and time progression (see also: the competing one-hour\/one-day\/one-week\/one-month storylines in \u201cDunkirk\u201d). Basically, the movie splits its time between King Odysseus (Matt Damon) of Ithica taking 20 years to fight and then return from the Trojan War, and his family toward the end of that 20 years needing to do something about vacant throne and the glut of scheming suitors squatting in the castle hoping to wed the possibly-widowed Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) so they can become king as the expense of rightful heir Prince Telemachus (Tom Holland), Odysseus\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Odysseus wins the war with the help of some underhanded tactics that displease the gods. His trip home is then cursed with a series of winds and storms that blow his ships off course, plus deadly detours involving a Cyclops, giant Laestrygonian warriors, soul-piercing Siren songs, a witch (Samantha Morton) that turns his crew into pigs, and other nasty surprises. Less nasty is the several amnesia-ridden years he spends marooned on an island with the nymph Calisto (Charlize Theron), but a delay is a delay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back on Ithica, suitors are overrunning the palace, and Penelope and Telemachus are at their wits\u2019 end. They can\u2019t just order them to leave, because their royal duties require them to be accommodating to strangers, but those rules were designed to help humble paupers, not these well-off freeloaders. Telemachus could assume the throne, but he\u2019d become a target for assassination, and Holland doesn\u2019t exactly have spider powers in this movie. Penelope could remarry, and suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) is at the front of the line if she makes that choice, but she really wants Odysseus to return and set things right. But how long can she be expected to wait?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Technically, Nolan is at the top of his game here. The threats are scary, the soundtrack is pulse-pounding (from what I\u2019ve gleamed, this is many viewers\u2019 favorite aspect of the movie), and the scenes on boats do a really good job of putting the viewer right in the middle of the action, which is a nice way of saying they made me seasick. He even provides some insight into Odysseus\u2019s internal struggle that I\u2019ve been told most versions of the story do not. So I\u2019m recommending the movie, there are no worries there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But while I am recommending \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d I can\u2019t help but also relay some disappointment. Granted, there was an enormous amount of pressure on this film given the prominence of both the director and the source material, and any product assembled by a mere mortal \u2013 even Christopher Nolan \u2013 was bound to be disappointing on some level, but it\u2019s not just that. Namely, did the movie have to be so long and meandering? Some will be quick to jump in and say yes, those qualities are synonymous with \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d and it would be weird if Nolan\u2019s version wasn\u2019t like that. But I felt there were stretches \u2013 mostly toward the end when a plan by Odysseus needs to be put into action \u2013 that could have used some tightening. It\u2019s as if Nolan couldn\u2019t stand to have his film labeled as \u201cefficient.\u201d The result is a film that I can\u2019t label as anything but inefficient. I knew going into \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d that a certain inefficiency was to be expected, but I thought Nolan would be able to make me feel that the inefficiency was necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Odyssey\u201d is rated R for violence and some language. Its running time is 172 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver Few film adaptations require more ambition than Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d the quintessential epic. And perhaps no filmmaker has been more ambitious this millennium than Christopher Nolan,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDdcL2ltYWdlLTIwMjYtMDctMjNUMTMwMDExLjgwMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD02OTElMkMxMDI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiTW92aWUgUmV2aWV3ICYjODIxMTsgVGhlIE9keXNzZXkiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.jA8iLjUjygXLRQ6ReE_PtkcOFjxVy1UZhzlhiEnhYAYMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDdcL2ltYWdlLTIwMjYtMDctMjNUMTMwMDExLjgwMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD02OTElMkMxMDI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiTW92aWUgUmV2aWV3IC0gVGhlIE9keXNzZXkiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.r24s2Ihawo7UzYB2MUveEBpCgAPe7eZV8ltqA2YWyUoMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[15135],"class_list":["post-74356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review-the-odyssey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74362,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74356\/revisions\/74362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}