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!

Saw the film today and really enjoyed it but did think the final retribution scene with the suitors went on a bit - also glad we paid for comfy seats at Odeon and that I took my noise cancelling over ear headphones to help tone down the volume. (As I’ve got older I can no longer cope with loud shows).

I'm a Classics prof so went to it with great interest. FWIW, I think it's a great achievement and bits of the visuals were extraordinary (Circe and those pigs!) but awfully serious and epic and self-conscious, which is a shame because the Odyssey itself is anything but, and it seemed as though he had very deliberately excised the bits of Homer that are light and humorous (and more woman-centred!)

o

I enjoyed the film however it felt too long and VERY loud.

I took my Odyssey-fan 13yo, it was borderline on the violence imo.

I enjoyed it hugely but was initially confused, as was DH, as to why there was a woman dressed as a male soldier (now understand this is a trans ftm actor and we weren’t supposed to realise).

i thought Damon & Hathaway were excellent, but I’d have cast people with more melanin for these roles. Either actually convincingly Greek or, if racially blind casting, not going for a blond fair skinned hero.

I loved the Circe bit, best bit of the film, Morton was superb. And the monsters were great. My 13yo had maaaany notes for CN, didn’t stop wanging on for hours, it was lovely.

Homer does describe his heroes as fair haired, though. I don’t read Ancient Greek so don’t know what the actual word is, but I remember the fair haired description in translation very clearly.

The authenticity point gets confusing nowadays with colour and sex blind casting, I suppose. You don’t know if what you’re seeing is deliberate or if you’re supposed to ignore it.

I think we're definitely meant to think Elliott Page is male.

Some of you will need to clutch your pearls, we took the 12 yo almost 13 yo DD to see it. She found the pre-film trailers more scary (Werwulf, Digger, The Uprising) than the main event.

She liked it, although did watch the Cyclops through fingers, and shut her eyes while Circe turned the men into pigs. She thought TH and AH were perfectly cast but was seriously critical of some of the changes made to the story (Calypso dispensing lotus flowers, Athena being so mild mannered).

Me and DH enjoyed it. The soundtrack is brilliant and no doubt it’ll garner armfuls of awards. Samantha Morton was the stand out for me.

I thought I’d want to go see it again, but actually once was enough.

I found the trailers scary too! I also watched the cyclops and the pig scene through my fingers!
I actually cried at the cyclops!

Yes I was thinking of the hair colour specifically then commenting more generally

I cried when Argos died at Odyssey’s return.

Yes, that too! I was praying he would survive. When he leaned down and rubbed him, I was crying!
I think I got upset at some of the wrong parts, but not Argon.

Cannot fathom have so many people loved it - it was a loud interminable bore-fest. Dull AF characters you couldn’t give a flying shit about, earsplitting noise, muffled dialogue, ridiculous ‘goodfellas’ new yoik accents, far too long, blurry fight scenes, comic-book villains, and great actors like Charlize Theron completely wasted on pathetic insipid characters that did no justice to female strength.

Oh and the very obvious female that was supposed to be a male Greek warrior…Elliott whatshername… pfft. 🙄

By the end I had a headache and was just relieved it was over. I will never watch it again. Overhyped rubbish.

If a film is listed as 15, trailers can be 15 too.

We were lucky. Using Sky Vip, we applied for their preview ticket ballot.

Got 2 free tickets. NO ads, NO previews, and - bliss - NO phones (all phones off, if you were seen to be using one, you would be removed from the theatre and forever banned from previews)

Was also over "teatime" (started at 6pm) , so the theatre was half empty - and mostly made up of middle aged couples like us (who still use sky).

Glad I've found this thread, saw it last night (I did also feel sad for the cyclops and the poor dog). Enjoyed it on the whole but my friend, I think, struggled as she hadn't read her Greek myths, which I haven't also but I do know the story, so it was all a bit disjointed for her. I have one query, at the final battle against the suitors, one by one men were seen "taking the knee" and I wondered were these suitors out of respect or were they ghosts of his comrades because some of them looked as though they were? I know Im probably reading too much into the scene but I couldn't work it out. Now ive slept on it, I'd like to see it again it really was very good.

I understood this to be suitors who had taken themselves out of the fight and were showing their submission to Odysseus as king.

@Whylurkwhenicanjoinin I’ve slept on it and decided I’d like to see it again too. Think there will be details I’ve missed.

@MaeshoweDragon LOL, you don’t say

Thank you, I think you're probably right. I also think I'll be going again Soup!

Went earlier this week, I’d like to see it again too, to pick up details I missed, I was a little confused in a couple of places (earlier on where we are meeting a lot of characters and the young and old versions come and go). I’ve never read The Odyssey but had general awareness of the plot and many of the characters. I had to look away in the cyclops and pig scenes too. Very well acted, the use of Mum and Dad didn’t bother me as it was all in modern language, the loud sound was fine too, it didn’t set off my apple watch which pings me at 90db —every time I use a Dyson handdryer—. I found the colour a bit washed out, and there was a point about 45 mins before the end where I thought it needed to be over, but then the final scenes just got better and better.

I loved it. Very different to Homer's Odyssey though in terms of Odysseus's guilt over the Trojan horse offending against Xenia and this being the driver of the whole story, rather than the offence to Poseidon- this was a far greater change to the story than any of the casting decisions. Completely happy with that though- I never understand why people judge a work purely on the basis of fidelity to the original. The whole point of creating a new work is that you bring something different to it. If you only want fidelity just read the book.

I thought the whole cast was fantastic. Loved Himesh Patel. Cried at Argos obv.

im curious for those who saw it in IMAX 70mm as to what you thought of it. My local cinema is actually one of the 4 cinemas in Europe showing it in this format so I have booked a showing in late August. I don’t have childcare in the evening so have booked a half day to go see it and just want to make sure it’s worth it. Tickets aren’t especially cheap at over 20 pounds a ticket!

Can anyone do a share token fir Tony Sewell's opinion piece in The Times today? Because it is so hilariously wrong headed, it's bewildering!

https://www.thetimes.com/article/2ff0c624-5567-4727-aeba-515e7e23f8cb?shareToken=8b182aec4db25305c780ecf2576a3e6c

I think he was using a fairly large shoehorn.

Many of the issues he raises are real but the linkage to Homer is quite a stretch

Yes, and somewhat ignoring the rather large issues caused by violent , wayward men!

I saw it in IMAX and thought it was a great experience. Some of the scenes were just so powerful. I was tempted to go to my local cinema and see it again but I feel I won't like it as much this time, should have done it the other way around. I've not been to an IMAX in about a decade so it's hard to compare it to other films.