Thank you for making me laugh at my desk with your wit.
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Or, could it be, maybe, just maybe, people are tired of all the superhero, animated nonsense and clung to whatever else was out there that wasn’t that? Seems to be backed up by the box office performance of films like this, Backrooms and Obsession.
Pretty sad that we had to travel back in time about 3,000 years in order to find a tale that probably seems more timely and, dare I say “original”, than whatever the latest superhero film is.
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Spider-Man will give studio heads assurance that they should keep on investing in super heroes, but if that new Avengers movie fails (and even the online fanboys seem to be underwhelmed by that trailer) it maybe will give them pause.
Not Disney, though. They will keep on doubling down until Marvel only produces flops. Expect many more Spider-Man movies, and after saying there won’t be more Deadpool movies Reynolds now announced that there will be another Deadpool movie (those lawyers must have been too expensive).
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This keeps on being astonishingly impressive…
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I‘m sure the bosses will take cuts to their bonuses, too…
Hah!
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Not so surprising, Pixar’s is probably the first content Disney’s bosses think could be sourced out wholesale to AI. And if that works…
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Very high praise for a mediocre movie (cast, script, accents, costumes etc…) only for being a pretty Nolan movie
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I guess I take a pretty Nolan movie over most other pretty films.
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Sure, but to make a pretty film has a lot to do with the cinematographer. Roger Deakins almost isn´t able to make a film that´s not beautiful but not all of them are good movies (looking at you Air America, In Time or Hail Ceasar). Gladiator II is almost as beautiful if not better shot as Gladiator but no-one sane would say they are both good movies…and everyone who thinks that Nolan did alright with his casting, script, accents and costume choices, well good for you. To me it´s just some weird sh.t they have done to the probably greatest adventure story out of hybris because they thought the original wasn´t catchy and interesting enough…
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I still haven’t seen Nolan’s version therefore it’s not possible for me to comment either way. But any adaptation of the Odyssey is necessarily a personal series of choices, concessions and compromises. Some came along with a need to resonate with a modern audience, some reflect our present situation in various ways or were simply due to Nolan’s vision. None per se would disqualify his film for me.
As for authenticity, can there even be an ‘authentic’ version of a poem that survived for ages as a performance before it was even written down? A fantasy poem at that, which employs myth and historical event in equal measure? And may have had a number of different interpretations before its ‘definite’ incarnation that we’ve come to accept as Homer’s today?
Maybe part of the problem is that the original text is so relatively rarely adapted for the big screen compared with, say, Romeo and Julia for example. That text has seen countless vastly different versions which now all stand side by side as adaptations - with varying degrees of accuracy admittedly. Audiences decide which one they prefer. Maybe a similar mindset will one day shape our approach to The Odyssey and its depictions on the screen.
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You´re absolutely right about the personal series of choices, but really? Darth Vader Agamemmnon, Punisher Menelaus from the Bronx?
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As I said, I’ve not yet watched the film. I would probably choose differently, very likely also with respect to other changes. Nonetheless, I’m going to approach the film on its own merits. It’s entirely possible it won’t click with me as much as with others.
But somewhere upthread I mused the real achievement of Nolan’s ODYSSEY is the impact on the theatrical landscape and the broad discourse on a millennial old cornerstone of western culture and how it resonates with our times - Darth Vader and Punisher included. Maybe these liberties will only really unfold with a distance. Or fall flat in the eye of the future critique.
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Yet another superhero / comic book film. Joy.
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Another vigilante variation, this time with icky body horror.
I am not a conaisseur of the comics, nor do I want to subject my time to that kind of horror.
So I am a perfect specimen of the mainstream audience which will not watch this.
Why Gunn decided that this is the way to build his DC universe is hard to understand. This will flop badly.
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I suppose there is such a thing as the overlapping demographic between hardcore DC fans and general horror aficionados that could theoretically be the target for this. But how it’s expected to click with a wider audience - dare I say family? Couples on their evening out? - is beyond me. It’s also not the type of ‘stylish’ horror like Fincher would serve on a platter, no SE7EN or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS that might attract an adult audience beyond a certain core group.
Difficult.
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The only decision that he’s made that I agree with regarding the DCU is to not lead with Batman. Batman needs to sit on the shelf for a while.
Aside from that, this new stretch of DC films has been about as bad as I expected it to be.
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This was inevitable after Joker. I seem to recall me and @secretagentfan joking at the time about the inevitable influx of Batman villain movies…and, oh, here we are.
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I‘m just surprised that Gunn starts of with Superman (yay!), goes to Supergirl (good but horribly done) and then thinks this is the best film for the third brick in the wall.
Especially since Mike Flanagan gave him a script… which then was rewritten. At least lead with Flanagan as a horror guarantee.
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Thoughts on THE ODYSSEY:
Summary
If ever there was a recent film that carries the flag for auteurism, THE ODYSSEY is it. The entire work is suffused with the sensibility of Christopher Nolan. Odysseus is a Bruce Wayne/Oppenheimer mash-up–traumatized, struggling, and seeking redemption. THE ODYSSEY ends with Odysseus and Penelope on a ship headed to honor his men who died. Bruce Wayne finishes up in Florence with Selina Kyle. The hero has been recuperated.
Nolan picks among The Odyssey’s events to give us Calypso as a tropical therapist and Circe as a lonely, spinster with men issues (losing the two sons she has with Odysseus along the way). Richard Brody in The New Yorker said that the film may work best with people who have not read The Odyssey, and I would add that even if a viewer knows the poem, as long as they accept that Nolan has mined and reshaped it to be an expression of his worldview, there are not any issues. I may prefer Homer’s conniving, willful, sly, and clever Odysseus to Nolan’s traumatized soldier, but the characterization is consistent throughout the movie.
The final battle with the suitors is Marvelesque, and includes fast cuts, merged zones of action, and modest impact. My audience did cheer when Antinous got his at the hands of Odysseus–cheering which I enjoyed more than the fight sequence itself. In keeping with movie custom, Antinous is the last suitor to be killed (which brings the fight to a halt) rather than the first as in Homer. Also, despite the fate of one of Penelope’s female servants who is a spy for Antinous, the female slaves are a non-presence in the film.
For me, acting honors go to John Leguizamo as Eumaeus. Matt Damon gets better as the film goes along, and Anne Hathaway is good while kept on a short leash. Tom Holland is petulant and unconvincing.
As for the images, I do not understand the fuss about the entire film being shot with IMAX cameras. Wide shots are great, but the medium rack-focused shots of people talking are just medium rack-focused shots of people talking. I had the same issue with THE BRUTALIST. While I was happy that it was shot in VistaVision, for most shots it was overkill, and sometimes the actors did not seem to know how to perform in front of such cameras.
Overall, the best thing I can say about the film is that I was not bored. But in a sense, if that is the best thing I can say, it is also the worst thing that I can say. I will be seeing it again in 70mm on Saturday with my husband and another pair of friends. Will do an update if one is merited.
Completed shortly after 3:00 p.m. EDT in NYC. I am klutzy with the “hide details” function, so that is why I had to delete one post, and keep revising this one.
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