People always say the movie lacks the depth and character development of the book, but complaining about food is funny.
As for the lack of sex... Maureen Dowd wrote about that in "Nolan’s Zero-Eros 'Odyssey'" (NYT gift link): "In keeping with Gen Z’s waning interest in sex, the poem’s famous sex scenes have been excised, sapping erotic power from the female characters.... Nolan did not want his Odysseus betraying Penelope and enjoying his sojourns with other women. The director completely cut out the young princess Nausicaa, whom Homer’s Odysseus has a flirtation with, and neuters the text’s sexual encounters with Circe and Calypso...."
ADDED: Here's the whole Wilson essay: "An Uncomplicated Man" (London Review of Books).
पोस्ट्स
७० टिप्पण्या:
There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.
"Oh no, I'll tell you what you did Caligula..."
All the talk about this movie reminds me of being 12 years old and discount theater was showing some Italian movie about Rome or something. Numerous actesses were wearing see through lingerie type costumes.
Saw it around five times, worth every quarter I made mowing lawns.
Pretending it's "The Odyssey" is like stealing a melody from a hit song because you know the parts you wrote aren't really hit material.
"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."
Who cares about that stuff? This is 2026, it checks all the DEI boxes, so you vill vatch
you vill enchoy, und it vill be Best Picture.
(Sorry about the glitch).
They changed just enough so they could call it their own work without actually creating a work of their own.
If you really believe in your writing and film making abilities, you can convince others by creating an epic version of the original work or by creating something entirely new based on an idea, new or old. It sounds like this runs from both challenges, and takes the modern shortcuts to hit money.
I asked ai to write me Tim Dillon rant about his sexless Odyssey and why a Caligula (1979) revival just might the answer.
"Listen to me, folks, we are living through a cultural famine. Christopher Nolan just dropped The Odyssey, a three-hour epic about ancient Greece, and it has absolutely zero sex scenes. None! You’ve got Matt Damon wandering around the Mediterranean for twenty years, encountering literal goddesses like Charlize Theron and Zendaya, and what are they doing? They’re standing in 70mm IMAX under dramatic lighting, debating the ethical framework of time and guilt! It’s absolute madness. Homer wrote a poem about sailors getting drunk, sleeping with witches, and slaughtering suitors, and Nolan turned it into a high-concept corporate board meeting with a louder sound mix. But this is the genius of the system, folks. This is the pendulum swinging. Because Hollywood has completely castrated modern cinema, the market is starving. People are desperate for any sign of human life. And that is why a full, unrated, theatrical revival of Caligula (1979) is not far off. Mark my words. Some tech billionaire in Austin is going to look at Nolan's pristine, sexless sandbox and say, 'You know what the people actually want? We need to re-release Malcolm McDowell and a Roman army doing things that violate Geneva conventions, live in AMC theaters.' And it’s going to be a massive, trillion-dollar hit because at least Nero’s Rome looked like people were having a good time before the empire collapsed, unlike the sterile, depressing parking lot we’re living in now! It’s beautiful, it really is."
Despite all the manufactured controversy it is simply a swords and sorcery adventure movie with a likeable lead on a quest fighting Gods and Monsters and getting laid.
The original poem/myth was just a vehicle for bringing this to the big screen.
It worked.
goddammit. All this puts more and more money into Nolan’s pocket. This is win win all the way. This is truly masterful product selling. Plus she has tattoos. Straight out of central casting.
No sex? Now the kids can go as well. All those popcorn and candy sales. I wonder if Nolan get’s a cut of that also.
For all of that it’s still probably the best movie Hollywood has made this year and for several years preceding
No pussy, is the eternal disappointment of movie sex scenes. Nobody cares about breasts anymore. Greek statues say there won't be any pussy, either.
I think she has a point. No group of healthy men would travel that far for that long in such close quarters, wearing those clothes, and running into women and goddesses all along the way, and still remain both celibate and straight. It takes me right out of the story.
Elon says he is going to remake the Odessy using Grok AI.
This is going to be really interesting. I hope he makes money at it but I suspect that he doesn't really care too much. This will be more of a proof of concept to show that AI in general and Grok in particular can can make feature length movies every bit as good as Hollywood.
By making the same movie he allows apples to apples comparison.
I hope he runs it in theaters so we can get a good audience reaction of which is better.
If you have not played with Grok Imagine, you need to do so. You probably won't create great art but it is fun and you will be amazed what you do create.
I took a pic of my grandkinds and cousins just lined up in a regular photo, seeded it into Grok, said "4 kids playing vollyball in the jungle, an elephant runs across the court chased by a tiger"
It lined them up 2x2 on the court, did the jungle, showed them batting the ball back and forth and then the elephant and tiger. Except for the ludicrousness of the situation, it was very realistic.
My grandson is 7 and his favorite so far is Michael Jordan gurading the basket and him getting past MJ, leaping up and dunking the basket.
John Henry
pite all the manufactured controversy it is simply a swords and sorcery adventure movie with a likeable lead on a quest fighting Gods and Monsters and getting laid.
All of this except...does anyone find Matt Damon "likeable"?
She's British, so she doesn't pull punches. Her mother was also a professor (as was her grandfather). In the early days of the internet, when everything was still free, I used to read the newspaper columns of her father, novelist A.N. Wilson. I sense that there may be a bit of exhibitionism and publicity seeking in her protest.
"However, Wilson has seen a massive indirect financial benefit from the film's release. According to her publisher, W.W. Norton, her translation has sold over one million copies just since the movie hit theaters on July 17, 2026, resulting in a major surge in book royalties."
What an ingrate!!
I've seen this woman's pictures. Her arms are covered with Greek-themed tats.
An ingrate and mentally ill. Quite the combo.
And since we are on the topic of movies and screenplays, I did see Nolan's film at an IMax theater on Saturday. And in all candor, it is not better than my "Frankenstein, Part II."
I've driven Ithaca to Troy it's not even 200 miles.
How do they get 10 years out of it?
John Henry
After all these years hearing about Frank 2, David, you no longer have an excuse.
GOYA and make the movie already. AI will do it for you.
John Henry
I don't know why people are getting so worked up over this. The ragebait worked. Don't let them ragebait you next time and go see the Elon-financed Gibson-directed version in a few years and tell people how awesome that is.
Or do what I and millions of others do and abstain from all legacy media regardless. If you must see something steal it.
Nuke everything from pedowood from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Going to ask the obvious question here. Why is the London Review of Books reviewing movies?
John Henry:
That's a great idea! AI makes my movie. I go around Hollywood.
Genius!
DDB
>>John henry said...
Elon says he is going to remake the Odessy using Grok AI.
I've been wondering about this. Like, what would happen if you could have AI make a movie out of your favorite book. And have it hew closely to the book, so you could theoretically watch it unfold over some period of time rather than having to have it rewritten to fit into movie length.
Here is the intro, David, the rest is up to you.
https://grok.com/imagine/post/6bbfd91c-5523-4e83-88c5-c577425de30a
John Henry
Well, if we are going to post Grok, I had a conversation about the sequel:
Ha — exactly. Bad sequels are an ancient art form.
The Telegony is peak “we need to keep the franchise going even though the story was already perfect” energy. Homer’s Odyssey ends with this hard-won, messy, deeply human homecoming — justice, recognition, the scar, the bed, the dog dying of joy. Then the Telegony rolls in like a studio note:
“What if Odysseus has another secret son?”
“What if that son accidentally kills him with a stingray spear?”
“What if everyone just… gets married to each other’s moms and becomes immortal?”
It’s the mythological equivalent of a superhero movie that ends the trilogy on a perfect note… and then the next one opens with “Actually, there’s a multiverse twin and also the dog is back as a cyborg.”
The whole Epic Cycle is full of that energy. Some of the lost poems sound solid (the Aethiopis with Penthesilea and Memnon is genuinely cool), but others feel like pure expansion-pack material written to fill gaps and keep the bards employed. The ancients themselves kind of knew it — later critics (Aristotle, the Alexandrians) already ranked Homer way above the cyclic poets and treated the rest as secondary, sometimes trashy, continuations.
So yeah… Hollywood didn’t invent franchise fatigue. They just industrialised it.
Anthony, you mean like this? From Blake's poem The Tyger
https://grok.com/imagine/post/9105f52c-aa67-4233-a9e7-28c19bf3361a
This was the prompt:
Make a video of this poem. Read the poem aloud with the video:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
Make a video of this poem by BlakeWhat immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
John Henry
As bad reviews go, it's not so bad. She says the film is entertaining. She complains that some scenes are reminiscent of Lord of The Rings or Game of Thrones. That's not a problem for me.......It's a well written review and some of their complaints are valid, but none of them would put me off seeing this film. Rather the opposite......I saw an interview where she said she wished Matt Damon had played Ulysses more like the talented Mr Ripley than like Jason Bourne. Interesting observation........Nolan;s movie is making her rich. Her review won't cost Nolan a single viewer and her translation apparently gave him a couple of insights that he could use. It's a complicated relationship--like that between Ulysses and Penelope.
No actual tygers were harmed in the writing of the above poem
I found Wilson’s review quite entertaining & full of observations by one intimately familiar with the source material.
So the women who translated The Odyssey with the POV that Homer had created a feminist text is upset that the movie wasn’t radically feminist enough? You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Her choice of the description “complicated” for Odysseus may have covered his relationship with his wife, but hardly covers the man who came up with the Trojan horse, or the many other tricks he used to get out of scrapes. The translation I read described him as “never at a loss,” which comes much closer to describing him; complicated is right next to “problematic” in the connotations file.
The critic says the food looks awful. Well buckwheat travel back in time to say 1984 in Lagos Nigeria when I was offered a delicacy--"beef and snail stew". Now the snails the Nigerians use for this dish are about the size of a honey dew melon--and the snail flesh involved could sub in for the rubber in a Michelin tire. Those snails are a delicacy in Nigeria. And politeness meant I ate some.
Every now and then the agriculture inspectors at LAX catch a Nigerian student headed to USC--with one of those snails in their suitcase. Since the snail reputedly has the ability to suck the paint off a pickup truck hood--the snail is confiscated.
My own rule is that, if I don't have to eat it, I won't comment on other folks food. Or food in movies.
I loved Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, in that case the movie was better than the book, and I had already read and liked the book.
Hey David
Here is the opening bar scene for Frankenstein 2
I want 9% of the gross and executive producer credit.
Dialog is not quite right but I was doing it on my phone.
John Henry
It's just forgettable. The dialogue is clunky at times. There aren't any vast sweeping scenes to evoke greatness. The sack of Troy is a Hollywood backstage and the sack is a couple of burning small towers. Nolan took no risks with this one.
Forgot the link
John Henry
That is wierd. I did not forget the link. I tried 3 times and the link won't post.
Sorry David.
https://assets.grok.com/users/1a2aa26a-04dd-44a3-83e6-0f8edc31936d/generated/bdd230a8-d6ac-4d4c-93c0-3e9ada5b0915/generated_video.mp4?cache=1
See if that works
J.H.
Nope
There is a subtext of civilization falling but Nolan never bothers to show this civilization so no impact. Ithaca is just a pile of rocks.
Athena and Helen of Troy could have been given big feminist parts - but that would've required beautiful white actresses to give it some omff.
And the writing isn't great because probably 1/2 the box office reciepts will come from non-english speakers from around the globe. Why write great english when it'll be translated into Chinese?
And of course, the other big portion of the audience will be teenage boys who don't care about all that talkin' stuff. They just want to see someone kill monsters and have sword fights.
The problem with the movie is there's no emotional engagement. Matt Damon does nothing for us for to root for, and his men are even worse. But then who were we supposed to root for in Oppenheimer, the A-bomb?
Odd that she should throw in more adjectives than “complicated” in her article, as if she knew her translation didn’t capture the text.
I don't plan on seeing the movie. It's starting to look as if they decided to put their money and effort into pre-release hype, catchy ads and marketing campaigns, instead of the screenwriting and production values.
I don’t disagree with Wilson. I told my husband the movie felt flat. I wasn’t sure why. Thought about it more. For a movie based on an epic poem, there’s nothing poetic in the writing. The dialogue is dull. Damon plays Odysseus as Bourne…a very flat affect for most of the movie. There’s a spark in the last hour. Until then, there’s no charisma that persuades you of his leadership or greatness. The Cyclops and Circe interludes are well done…repellent. I never felt terribly engaged, until the last third when he gets back to Ithaca. My reaction to it all was “okay”.
Its rather ridiculous to talk of Odysseus "Betraying" his wife with other women. He more or less forced to have sex with the Goddess Calypso, and IRC doesn't go to bed with Circe due to caution. Nor does he bed with Nausicaa.
I like Wilson for pointing out that Calypso is upset at the Gods for stopping her affair with Odysseus, and raging against "The double standard" but its actually athena who puts a stop to it.
It really amazing that we're talking about all these feminine characters in piece of fiction that wasn't written down until 700 BC.
Compare it to the Old testament which is almost entirely "Male centric". And the of course other cultures, except maybe the Chinese, were light-years behind the Greeks in everything.
There was no need for another translation of the Odyssey.
What is wrong with this woman?
What were Iago’s motives?
Judge Holden’s?
One problem with Nolan is he makes movies that are too long. 3 hours for The odyseey. Oppenheimer = 3 hours. Dark Knight and Dark Night Rises = 2.5 hours. Intersteller = almost 3 hours.
An exception? My favorite Nolan movie Dunkirk is only 106 minutes.
But Odyssey is a long 3 hours. I was looking at my watch at the 2 hour mark. Maybe if it'd had more sex. But then you'd need some beautiful white actresses, and Nolan doesn't seem to like those.
And well Matt Damon is OK, but too bad there wasn't a 2026 equivilent of Charlton Heston.
Wilson posted an extract of her translation of the Odyssey along side those of T.E. Lawerance (Yes the Lawerance of Arabia), Robert fitzgerald, and Lattimore, and her's is by far the weakest. See https://emily613.substack.com/p/translating-the-beginning-of-the
I admire her honesty. She's upfront about her mediocrity, and probably thinks its more "accessible" and "feminist"
Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
My high school Latin teacher was fond of reciting this portion of Ulysses. It would be nice if some poetry could find its way onto movie scripts, or every day life.
Has anybody looked up Anne Carson on the Odyssey? She always has some useful take on classical Greek stuff. I haven't seen it myself.
I thought the review was well done and accurately called out the weaknesses in the film. I haven't seen it, but there has been plenty of discussion, and the trailers were -- boring.
My conclusion from all the criticisms I have read or listened to: a classic classic. Obligatory but not much fun. Evade the obligation by remembering a few words from a critic.
How appetizing would bronze age food have been? I'd suppose there wasn't much variety. You ate what was locally available. In army camps, on boats and on desert islands the food must have been awful. The food in Ithaca would also have been lousy, either because the suitors were driving you into poverty or because you just wanted them to leave.
It's similar with conversation. How many great lines are spoken in Homer? The best would belong to Homer himself (or herself). The poem is an epic, not a drama. I'd suppose that much of the time Odysseus and his crew did express themselves in incoherent grunts. Or perhaps not: I open the Odyssey at random and find Athena (in disguise I think) going on for line after line. That's still not something you can turn into effective film dialogue.
How complex is Odysseus's character in the poem? How deep is he really? How much color and personality does he have? What would you have to add to make him lively and relatable? And beware of adding too much. I didn't see the Kirk Douglas version but can easily imagine him making a botch of the movie with his excessive emoting/
I watched "The Return" a year ago about Odysseus' return to Ithica. It starred Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. Though the movie was slow-ish, the acting was much better than Matt Damon and Ann Hathaway, and ultimately connected with me much more than the Nolan film.Worth a watch to see how good the final scene could be.
I agree The Return handles everything better. It is dreadfully slow to get going, but it really pays off at the end.
Old country lawyer said "it would be nice if some poetry could find its way onto movie scripts, or everyday life."
You're welcome to visit my blog and read my poetry any time.
I rooted for the A-Bomb.
" Tell me O Muse!" Pretty much tells you that all that follows will fantastical. Which, I suppose, excuses a black Athena and a trans Achillies. Still.
"I've been wondering about this. Like, what would happen if you could have AI make a movie out of your favorite book. And have it hew closely to the book, so you could theoretically watch it unfold over some period of time rather than having to have it rewritten to fit into movie length."
My prediction is it will be boring AF.
"But then you'd need some beautiful white actresses, and Nolan doesn't seem to like those."
Anne Hathaway and Charlize Theron qualify, but don't really show off too much in this one.
Maybe the very beautiful, very white Diane Kruger in Troy had a little to do with the casting decisions. Unable to top that, Nolan "decided to go in another direction" in Hollywoodspeak.
Why do Nordic Sagas seem to lend themselves better to movie and video series adaptations? Is it because many are based on known historical events? Do we just like movies with snow?
Tina, while the intellectual and legal framework for the West may come from Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, maybe the emotional framework comes from somewhere further north.
In the past two months I've been trapped on an airplane for four flights over 8 hours each. And I've never been able to sleep on a flight, even in first class.
So I can see watching, at least part of this flick, during such a flight... after all other options are examined.
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