While Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" has been the subject of much heated debate (or perhaps because of that debate), I thought I'd give it a shot and form my own opinion on it. I knew towards which I leaned. How could you not when yet another Westerner allows Western culture and mythos to be trampled and disregarded for no good reason. Still, I wanted to be fair.
*I apologize. I just hate being on my phone at movies.*And in all fairness, Nolan's questionable casting choices do little to hinder the movie. Nor do they add to it in any meaningful way, though. Nothing seems to. Indeed, this much-talked-about film is, at best, unremarkable. Ordinary. Meh. Just to be clear, the film itself is not bad. In fact, it was way better than I expected, and at times, I did sympathize with some of the characters. I did like Tom Holland as Telemachus, for instance. But overall, if someone else had played any of the characters, I don't think it would've made much difference. At no point did I think "oh boy, I'm glad X was cast in that role!". They were fine. Just not something to write home about.
Which, ironically, I'm doing here in a way. But then again, it is the Internet, and we all feel compelled to have an opinion and make our voice heard, huh.
Which I guess is an even more interesting part of it - how the Internet turned an entirely average movie into a big, hot issue that everybody's talking about. I get (obviously) the critique on the right.
No, Nolan had no good reason to go DEI and not cast an accurate-looking cast all-around. The fact that he put a couple of Black, Asian and Hispanic dudes into the mix added nothing to the story. What it does risk doing, however, is diminishing this beautiful culture that we (broadly the Western World) have built upon. You would not see a couple of white dudes hanging out in a movie about African deities and myth. That would be appropriation. The fact that we so lightly allow our own precious history and culture to be appropriated has already bit us in the ass.
Royally.
But then, Nolan doesn't seem to count the gods much either way. Even Athena is nothing more than a PTSD vision for poor old Odysseus. Athena. Who fucking guides the dude back to Ithaca.
There is an interesting bit, though, that I understand and appreciate from a storytelling perspective. Throughout the film, the graceless suitors of Penelope keep invoking "Zeus's Law" (treat others as you would be treated, basically), only for Odysseus to have a breakdown at the end, decrying his own transgression of that Law via the Trojan Horse.
Now, that's actually a good point in a way, isn't it? We have come a sad, far way from the time when you could rely on the basic human goodness and common decency of your neighbor. How much a stupid B movie has managed to divide and enrage the Internet (and pit us one against the other) is a perfect example of that. In the film, Odysseus mourns the death of civilization. And indeed, it certainly often seems we are letting ours die.
On the other hand, I don't know how I feel about the message that war is despicable and we should now scorn our once heroes and legends. When I was a kid, Odysseus was a cunning, admirable hero. Are we going to throw these into the mud, too?
It is despcable. And very slowly we (the West) are inching our way to a new point. we are evolving. but we haven't evolved yet. And I think we're in a very dire and dangerous position right now. We keep having this impression of ourselves as nuanced and evolved, moved beyond the horrors of war and dog eats dog. I get it. Especially as an artist, but also as a human, I lack the stomach for such things and suffer for injustice bitterly.
At the same time, maybe it's not in our best interest as a culture (while we are still a culture) to throw down our "weapons", be they only mental. The heroes we revere, the stories we tell, these are important, valuable weapons. It's a signal of great hubris, convincing ourselves we are evolved past war-like mentalities. Because for one, we're not. The world changes, but not as fast as we would like to think, and us with it. And secondly, we are not surrounded by people who are past war-like mentalities. So, much like the Christian monks the Vikings once slaughtered, we may live by higher moral principles, though we may nevertheless die by the sword.
*Random Instagram find when I came home. Priceless.*All in all, it's not a bad movie. Long. Some decent CGI, especially the monsters. Probably the best part, if you ask me. Definitely doesn't hold a candle to its spiritual predecessor, "Troy". Then again, few things will probably impact me (or our culture) as much as Brad Pitt's naked, athletic glory.
I just wish, for all the fuss and all the stubborn casting, he would've made a better movie. would give a whole lot less of a fuck if it was a mindblowing movie. It definitely feels like Nolan's past his artistic prime. There's no daring, no creative cheekiness in either plotting or casting. And unfortunately, the film(goers) suffers for it.
Should you see it? I don't know. If you really want to. Personally, I'd wait for it to come out on streaming. Watch Inception. Interstellar. The Dark Knight. Memento. Plenty of actually good movies to fill your days with, you know.
