The idea of saying a “perfect film” exists is like saying there is such a thing as a perfect movie franchise. There isn’t!!! (See the much hated and now appreciated Star Wars prequel episodes 1-3 - 1999-2005 if you need proof).
I don’t listen to the movie critics any more than I heed the words of aliens from space, friends, family, its, dogs or cats who either boast how great or how bad a film was. I’ll see the pic myself, assuming I want to throw my money away seeing it on the big screen or wait two months where I can save half that cash wasted at theaters and stream at home. At least when at home, I’ll have the luxury of turning the film off should I loathe or finish watching later – hence the beauty of streaming.
That’s not to say I don’t follow a couple notable reviewers online. Those writers, however, I do read have nothing to do with my hopes he or she will like the film I was planning to see. Their unique writing styles are what draw me to their weekly reviews.
Writers like Stephanie Zacharek of Time who called “The Odyssey” an “eye-glazing dud of a movie” in her July 15 review.
“It churns so dutifully towards its predictable conclusions-summed up roughly as “War dehumanizes men!” and “Civilization, now as in Odysseus’s time is on the brink! -that you begin to wonder if it wouldn’t be a better use of your time to stay home and read The Odyssey.”
Or Armond White of National Review who wrote “The Odyssey is remade specifically to please leftists and declare a new cultural perspective on morality, civilization, patriotism, masculinity — all the issues now out of favor. The result is the usual and emotionally hollow, unheroic Nolan epic. The casting of Matt Damon as Odysseus (rather than an ambiguous figure like Gerard Butler’s feral King Leonidas in 300) lets us know that this makeover is meant for liberals.”
Or writer Emily Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a noted translator of both Homer’s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey."
Wilson wrote in her essay on Nolan’s film that appeared in the London Review of Books, that the epic “lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
In short, the positive scores and word of mouth I read on the internet about certain movies are not what peak my curiosity. The negative commentaries I see and read are what I pay the most attention to.
Hence my quoting and following Al Pacino’s Ricky Roma from “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992) on his rule of the “law of contrary public opinion”, “If everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.”
In short, the positive scores and word of mouth I read on the internet about certain movies are not what peak my curiosity. The negative commentaries I see and read are what I pay the most attention to.
Hence my quoting and following Al Pacino’s Ricky Roma from “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992) on his rule of the “law of contrary public opinion”, “If everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.”
To be fair, I’m holding off writing a review of "The Odyssey" until seeing it a second time.
Like Nolan's previous box office and Oscar winning triumph, "Oppenheimer" (2023), I made the fatal mistake of giving in to the accolades and saw "The Odyssey" four days after its nationwide opening July 17 in IMAX (but not the 70mm IMAX screen the director intended for it to be shown in).
I didn't appreciate "Oppenheimer" until streaming it again a year later.
Should my opinion of "The Odyssey" be in the resoundingly negative you can rest assured my reasons will have nothing to do with Helen of Troy, who in previous film adaptations has always been portrayed by a white actress and is here being portrayed now by a black actress (Lupita Nyong’o) and isn't a central character in this new version.
Or the film’s other controversial “woke” casting choices (from Elliot Page to Zendaya) which may well be called Nolan’s melting pot of an epic. The kind of movie that receives multiple Golden Globe and Oscar nominations and ultimately wins in a majority of the categories at such low rated trivial televised ceremonies few viewers watch in today’s “Hollyweird-land.”
I’ll decide upon my seeing “The Odyssey” a second time if the reason for my not embracing it the first time was the result of overhype.
Or if, like so many movies I’ve seen the past four decades where my reactions to them was the opposite of what everyone else said and was so disgusted by the time wasted watching such assortments of celluloid trash on the big screen that as the end credits of "The Odyssey" roll, I wind up screaming at the top of my lungs yelling “Da fuck was this shit!?!?!?!”
©7/29/26
I’ll decide upon my seeing “The Odyssey” a second time if the reason for my not embracing it the first time was the result of overhype.
Or if, like so many movies I’ve seen the past four decades where my reactions to them was the opposite of what everyone else said and was so disgusted by the time wasted watching such assortments of celluloid trash on the big screen that as the end credits of "The Odyssey" roll, I wind up screaming at the top of my lungs yelling “Da fuck was this shit!?!?!?!”
©7/29/26
