Has anyone seen The Odyssey film yet and what did you think

[Hatey]

Anyone booked or been to see The Odyssey. I’m booked for Sunday. I don’t really care about the casting, as it’s a myth.
So I’m looking forward to it!

Are you sure? Christopher Nolan is notoriously against using CGI so it seems unlikely he would use CGI for something that could easily use an actual dog/s.

I watched the Radio 1 film critics interviews with the cast. One of them explained there was three actual dogs used and they were real dogs no CGI.

Just been and was a bit underwhelmed. Himesh Patel was great, he's an actor who's come a long way!!
The 2004 Troy film ended with Paris and Helen escaping together, so was confused to see Helen back with Menalaus.

2004 Troy is one of the least accurate retellings of The Iliad/Trojan wars 😆

I'm glad I saw it in cinema as it was a spectacular spectacle. However, it was too long, the episode with the Laestrygonians seemed pointless, and it was missing all of the wily cunning character of Odysseus. I especially missed the 'Nobody' aspect of escaping from the Cyclops. I thought it was an odd choice to keep all the supernatural monsters and Circe's magic but cut out the Gods (Zendaya doesn't count as all she did was emote beautifully.)
I need to re-watch Tony Robinson's Jackanory version 😁

It was all real

I liked it. I’m not sure I’d watch it again though. It was very long and felt disjointed to me. Granted I don’t know a lot about the Odysseus story but I found the likes of Troy and Gladiator much easier to follow whereas this just had a series of mini adventures that didn’t much come together. Wasn’t overly invested in any of the characters either, Maximus and Achilles they were not.

Elliot Page, Mia Goth and Zendaya had such tiny parts they were barely there. R Pats made a good villain though.

Nolan keeps popping up in my dreams. The other night, he invited to his house and let me ride the super long zip line in his garden. I have an intense crush on him. Intense.

Just got back from watching it at the Everyman and was a tad underwhelmed after all the hype. Mark Kermode said CN created it all on Imax film and you need to watch it once on Imax to get the experience, so maybe that was why. It was loud as others have said, but sometimes OH and I struggled to understand the dialogue. It was way too long and could have been cut down to two hours. Pacing was unbalanced with some exciting scenes and others that dragged. I thought all the acting was top notch and some actors were amazing. Odysseus was supposed to be clever but he didn't come across that way to us. After the third time of running away and trying to get on the boats, I thought why didn't they learn after getting trapped by the Cyclops and send a small group of scouts to recce the land first? We thought the ending was a little odd. The Odyssey is all about the Gods, yet they had basically been erased other than Athena. And lastly, and on that note, Athena was a selfish bad-ass bitch Goddess, yet she was portrayed as a woo-woo wet blanket who didn't seem to contribute much other than give Odysseus meaningful looks.

It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either - it was OK

I saw it last night at our local cinema, which is called (drumroll please) The Odyssey! So I saw The Odyssey at The Odyssey and I loved it!

There were a couple of things that jarred initially - the American accents - even Tom Holland spoke with one when he's a Brit, the language is very modern too, but I noticed this less, I thought the big starry cast was a bit unnecessary - did we really need Zendaya as Athena? Do she and Tom Holland come as a package now they're married? We saw the same tower in Troy fall over from about four different angles, but those were small things and there was so much that was just absolutely amazing. The locations, the cinematography, the action sequences, the CGI, the huge cast of extras, the imagery, the monsters - all of it was brilliant. It's rare that I can sit through a 3-hour film, but I didn't get up once.

Oh and the sound - OMG - I could FEEL it through my whole body. Usually films are just loud these days (and it was loud), but the way that bass was used to literally shake the audience was pretty amazing.

Zendaya is currently taking time out, after she had to promote 5 films in one year

Oh crikey, just got back from seeing this. I bloody hated it. Boring and badly told - and I laughed my head off at some of the accents. Reminded me of good old Tony Curtis: “Yondah is the castle of my faddah.”

Samantha Morton was good though.

The accents were all American ? It was a conscious Nolan decision.

I’m sure it was but it made me laugh hearing them is all.

It's a tradition in epics for all actors to attempt a strange kind of hybrid English accent so Nolan said he wanted them all American (including the British actors) : Nolan does what Nolan wants...!

I was a bit underwhelmed. It was fine, but I was expecting to be blown away. I know it’s been mentioned lots, but the references to ‘Dad’ bothered me and there were a few ‘wannas’ and ‘gottas’ that I thought were sloppy. Also there’s so much exposition-driven dialogue, plus the narrative choices to make Odysseus a more sympathetic character. So taking out where he shouts back to the cyclops that he’s been beaten by Odysseus (his hubris bringing down the wrath of Poseidon) and that he willingly spends a year with Circe as her lover, as well as his time with Calypso. Based on his previous films I was surprised Nolan made these more ‘populist’ choices, as he’s usually comfortable with his audience handling some complexity.

On the plus side, the soundtrack was cracking and Robert Pattinson was an excellent villain.

I left the cinema after the first hour. I don't think I've ever done that before.

Saw it at an IMAX, and it was so loud I stuffed tissue in my ears and covered my ears with fingers. The seats were vibrating with the noise. I found it actively painful.

Everyone was unpleasant and violent, and there was an awful lot of killing people in horrible ways. I found it very uninteresting.

And did I mention it was LOUD.

Really? My DD just finished classical civilization, one paper out of two is on the Odyssey, and she thought it was massively altered. The gods were almost absent for a start, and many of the women's parts were substantially changed. Still enjoyed it though, but definitely not accurate.

Is that animated version definitely happening, is there a release date? DD loves Epic.

My DD loves it too I'm not sure – last I heard it was definitely in development by Bruckheimer (If I recall correctly), but no mention of a release date.

I thought Robert Pattinson was the stand out actor in this film.

One of the things that i thought was done well, was the dawning realisation on first the audience then Odysseus himself that they WERE the bad guys. The people from the sea.

He does tend to play the same character every time though 😂

I think that whole concept was a Nolan addition though? I think because he significantly reduced the role of the gods he had to add some other dimension.

The other side of reducing the gods' role so much for me was that it felt implausible that the journey back home took 20 years - other than the 7 years with Calypso, the rest of it didn't seem like it would take more than a few weeks!