Gargantua #36>>w>>153628d1788880524[reply][quote]My bf thought it was alright. This was my second time seeing the movie, and it solidified my opinion: eh. It's ok as spectacle, but Nolan, for some reason, decided to sideline the original heart of the story (Odysseus as the original wifeguy) in order to add in a muddled message on the War on Terror. He changes the character of Odysseus as a proud, confident general too devious for his own good into yet another generic grizzled war vet. Also all the Sea Peoples stuff is nonsense.
I think the main problem is that Nolan clearly wanted to make a Very Serious low-fantasy modern retelling, but didn't commit to the bit. So Agamemnon goes to war to "secure trade routes", the gods are actually hallucinations of a guilty conscience, the Nobody scene doesn't happen - but the Cyclops and the giants is still obvious fantasy, Odysseus still goes to Literal Hell to talk to Literal Ghosts. Nolan wanted to have an Ancient Greek war movie but still keep most of the stuff in the Odyssey, and he didn't do a good job balancing that difference.
Also, I cannot stress this enough, the Sea Peoples stuff is really stupid and could be cut out of an already too-long movie with absolutely no repercussions on the plot or characters. It's a decadent add-in by a director who has a high opinion of himself and no producer to tell him no.
Now that I've written this out, "Apocalypto but in the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age" would make for a great film. My favorite scenes were the ones in the Underworld and the temple at Pylos. A whole movie of just wierd Indo-European religious stuff set in a desaturated Aegean would go hard imo.
