“Not a disaster” is not a recommendation.
Chris Gore and Alan Ng‘s reactions to The Odyssey left me feeling overjoyed….ecstatic!
Over the last few weeks HE’s Nolan whore brigade has all but called me deranged and unstable for harboring feelings of pre-viewing, anticipatory hate, and now, here and at long last, are two gentleman whom I know are sane and sensible saying it’s somewhere between a half-and-halfer and a bust. Glory be to God! Angel choirs!
Gore: “The thing that didn’t work for me is the accents….the way they spoke diminished the film. It felt too modern. In a way it felt a bit like El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowski‘s cult film which felt like a modern western. In this same sense The Odyssey felt to me like a modern epic. There are parts that drag, especially during the first half. There are other moments, in particular [the encounter] with the Cyclops, that I thought were great. The fall of Troy. The witch [Samantha Morton]. The way the solders transform is, I thought, very clever. The controversial castings aren’t that big of a deal because of screen time. Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page might as well be [playing] cameos.”
Alan Ng: “I can’t wait to not see this movie again. You can’t hear the dialogue, for one thing. And, like, there was Matt Damon on-screen. There was Anne Hathaway on-screen. There was Tom Holland on-screen. But there was no characterization, no effort to say ‘I’m playing this character.’ It just doesn’t feel part of the period.”
Gore: “I didn’t like that the colors were muted…very muted. It could have been grand and colorful, but it wasn’t. This movie will probably win a lot of technical Oscars. It’s not a disaster, but mixed.”
Alan Ng: “It’s a disaster. Not mixed.”