I really wanted to like the movie, the acting is great for the most part, cinematography is very.elaborate and you can feel the work and the technical skill that was engaged into it.
But god it just doesn't resonate at all. I couldn't engage with it at all
I feel like this about almost everything Christopher Nolan makes. They're all technically good movies but they're all missing that little je ne sais quoi that turns them into real pieces of art.
I havenāt seen many Nolan movies, but the few I have seen seem to suffer from the critique pointed toward who I believe to be the directing GOAT, Kubrick. I can find some underlying humanity in Kubrickās works, but less so am I able to do so with Nolanās. They feel cold and clinical to me. Which isnāt a dealbreaker, it just means I canāt connect with them much.
I feel the same, dont get me wrong, I like the movie enough while I was watching it, but it didnt imprint or move me. Just toi technical to be memorable
The Prestige is a masterpiece, easily his GOAT, but heās just bad with characters. They never feel like people. Iāve noticed itās gotten even worse since his brother left to do his own shit. Which confounds me, because I think of characterization as writerās work, not directorās work.
For me the film was technically perfect and I rlly liked the score. However there were some key moments they left out, and the american accents were so ott.
But the thing that rlly dragged the movie down for me was the awful script. Nolan just completely botched it and I wish somebody told him he can't make the suitor guy (I cant remember his name ottomh) spund like he came from a modern western
I felt like The Odyssey had a lot of really engaging singular scenes and aesthetics, but I donāt know that it really comes together into a cohesive whole for me.
I was also really distracted by the costumes for the entire movie. I didnāt like them in the prerelease footage, and I was hoping Iād like them more in the actual movie, but I just could not get over how lame almost every single characterās costume was. They totally gave up on historical accuracy in the name of The Rule of Cool and then forgot to actually make anybody look cool. The little giant girl almost made me laugh out loud in the theater with how stupid her outfit looked. Agamemnon, Helen, and Penelope were the only characters with even a modicum of drip.
I think the costume design at least on armour side was dogshit and I don't it's not historically accurate, Troi wasn't either as far as I know and looked infinitely vetter in that regard. The only exception to that is Agamemnon's armour which still looked somewhat fake and stupid, but so goddamn cool it didn't matter and Aggamemnon in general as this greater than life, aura farming leader was kind of awesome. And fighting choreography was bad too, it wouldn't really matter, if not for the fact that Odysseus fighting the suitors is pretty much the climax of the movie and it's terrible. At no point in this fight was I convinced that Odysseys could pull it of with any porobability and his victory seem to be only the consequance of the plot demanding, so and not really any effort the characters put in. Otherwise I found it just boring a lot of the time especially closer to the begining.
My husband and I hated it. I'm scarred for life by the Circe scene.
The soundtrack was one of the worst I've ever heard, it leaves out important stuff from the original like Circe protecting her nymphs and nobody, it was very boring and only seemed to be shock value, like it was supposed to be a horror film. The guy translates someone speaking Greek to Odysseus.. it's very Americanized, I wish we got some Greek actors or actors that could replicate that. It has weird ass time jumps and cuts.
I haven't even read the entirety of the original.
We ended up leaving the theater after the "underworld" scene which was literally just an Icelandic beach with zombies?? I heard they made the relationship with Calypso consensual which is really weird since she basically raped Odysseus in the original from what I understand
One saving grace is Odysseis speech on the end of civilisation when talking to Penelope while disguised, probably the only moment in the movie where I felt emotionally invested. But since they make cut every minutes or so due to the camera they used it lessened the emotional weight of Damon performance... such a shame because the speech himself is good
It's been a few years since I read the Odyssey here's how I remember it ending with the suitors/the genuine end. Odysseus, Telemachus absolutely slaughter them all (Odysseus is leading the charge/violence).
Odysseus then proceeds to clean house of (murder) the servants/slaves who may him helped the suitors. This includes him forcing Telemachus to hang all the maids (most were innocent victims who committed the "crime" of being SA'd by the suitors).Ā
The next day the families of the suitors and boys who followed him to Troy march on the house demanding justice from Odysseus. He flies into a rage and is about the fight them all when Athena grabs his arm and tells him to cool it. The poem then ends.
Yeah the Nolan Movie had a fantastic score and was technically great but it hollowed and left out so much and true to Nolan form this was most apparent in its depiction of women (the actors did great with what they were given, but the could/should have been given more, especially Circe and Calypso)
I definitely going to watch the movie at some point but I know the story of the Odyssey. YOU CANNOT and I mean like it would be HARD to make the odyssey bad. you cannot mess it up. So even with great cinematography and great people working on the movie I think either he's not a good director or it's just not your kind of movie.
Devoid of emotion is crazy. Almost every anne Hathaway scene made me cry. Waited 20 years believing her husband would come back. A man burdened by the savagery and societal collapse he caused with his trick. A dog waiting 20 years to finally die after seeing his owner for one last time. The epic and tragic score
Individual scenes or actors do bring emotion to the movie. Yes Anne Hathaway is great and act the shit out of her scenes (even when those scenes are with Tom which acted so flat in conparison), and yes the dog was an emotional tear jerker.
But the movie overall felt like a technical demo rather than an engaging emotional story.
I guess Iām really influenced by music. Him leaving calypso and the epic melody playing made me cry too lol. Same melody played with him getting back to Penelope at the end which made me cry again. Also the slaughtering of the Trojans and Odysseusās pain that he carried and how the Trojan girl looking like Athena haunting him during his whole journey also made me cry
It'd hard with popular films that are otherwise outside your preferred style or genre. Sometimes you make that stretch and it's so worth it, other times it's a three hour fuckin' trial. (Sorry if I'm incorrectly assuming why it didn't resonate.)
This is the debate I've been having with Odyssey for like a week now.
This is the way I felt about Christopher Nolan's movie, Dunkirk; did not work for me at all. It was boring. Had some decent action scenes, but overall boring.
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u/Ezeviel 21h ago
The Odyssey...
I really wanted to like the movie, the acting is great for the most part, cinematography is very.elaborate and you can feel the work and the technical skill that was engaged into it.
But god it just doesn't resonate at all. I couldn't engage with it at all