The Real Odyssey Started After the Credits

“Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many ways…”

Over 2,700 years ago, Homer captured readers with those opening words.  Christopher Nolan needed IMAX cameras, hundreds of millions of dollars, and half of Hollywood.

Homer still told the better story.

Before The Odyssey even opened, I’d watched enough promotional interviews to qualify as an honorary cast member.  “Christopher Nolan’s greatest achievement.”  “You HAVE to see it in 70mm.”  “The definitive Nolan experience.”  The cast posing beneath the Eiffel Tower.  After a while, it felt less like a movie release and more like someone trying to sell me a timeshare on Mount Olympus.

Here’s my test for every movie.  If The Dark Knight is on TV, I’m stopping.  If Memento is on, I’m watching.  If The Odyssey is on…I’ll finally reorganize my sock drawer.  Back in school,  I read Homer’s Odyssey, The Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid.  While watching this movie, all three started blending together.  At one point I actually wondered where Dido was before remembering my brain had wandered into the wrong epic.  Somewhere, my old English teacher is either very proud or marking me down.

Greek mythology has survived for nearly three thousand years because it isn’t just history.  It’s imagination.  Gods throw spectacular tantrums.  Monsters lurk around every corner.  Heroes survive because they’re clever enough to outsmart giants, witches and the gods themselves.  Every island should feel like another impossible story.  Instead, Nolan gives us spectacle without wonder.  Nolan’s Odyssey follows one formula.  Land.  Something goes wrong.  Run back to the ship.  Repeat.  I wasn’t wondering what mythical creature would appear next.  I was wondering whether the ship had negotiated top billing.  Christopher Nolan remembered the stops on Odysseus’ journey.  He just forgot what made the journey worth remembering.

The biggest surprise isn’t that Nolan left out the famous “Nobody” trick.  It’s that he left out the very scene that explains why Odysseus became one of literature’s greatest heroes.  Odysseus is remembered because he’s the cleverest.  Remove that moment and you’re left with a warrior.  Not a legend.  Meanwhile, Matt Damon spends the entire movie looking like he’s been waiting three hours at Canadian Tire customer service.  I wasn’t rooting for him to get home.  I was rooting for him to smirk.

The dialogue doesn’t help.  Tom Holland keeps asking when “Dad” is coming home.  Characters casually drop the f-bomb.  Menelaus sounds like he wandered over from Queens.  What disappointed me most was how everyday everything sounded.  Homer’s world is rich, poetic and larger than life.  Baz Luhrmann showed with Romeo + Juliet that you can modernize a classic without sacrificing the beauty of the original language.  Here, the poetry and grandeur feel diluted, leaving conversations that sound surprisingly ordinary for one of the greatest epics ever written.  Anne Hathaway is the lone exception.  She gives Penelope a regal dignity that almost convinces you the dialogue is better than it is.  She’s performing Shakespeare while everyone else sounds like they’re ordering lunch.  One scene genuinely confused me.  A Greek speaking character appeared to need a translator to speak to Odysseus.  Another Greek!  I spent the next five minutes wondering whether I’d forgotten my own language.

A movie called The Odyssey should make you want to book a flight to Greece.  Instead, I found myself wondering where Greece had gone.  I’ve sketched at the Acropolis.  I’ve paid twice to see the Mask of Agamemnon (because I missed it the first go around.)  Somehow, my vacation photos captured more wonder than this movie ever did.  Greece isn’t just beautiful.  It feels mythical.  Aside from the crashing waves and Agamemnon’s striking helmet, very little inspired awe.  Somehow, one of the most beautiful places on Earth ends up looking like it could be anywhere.

Ironically, the most memorable part of The Odyssey happened after it ended.  Walking home, I was hit by a fleeing e-scooter.  My umbrella flew one way.  My shoulder and neck went another.  Yet somehow I never dropped my tub of Greek yogurt.  Honestly, if you’re going to get hit after watching a Greek epic, Greek yogurt is the only acceptable thing to be carrying.  Eventually an ambulance arrived.  They couldn’t find me. I waved.  They waved back.  For ten seconds we looked more like neighbours than patients and paramedics.  As they loaded me onto the stretcher, I had one request.

“Don’t forget my Greek yogurt.” Priorities.

On the ride to the hospital, one of the paramedics asked what I’d been doing.

“I just saw The Odyssey.”

“How was it?”

“Let’s just say Homer doesn’t have much to worry about.”

Without missing a beat, he replied, “Christopher Nolan must’ve been driving the scooter.”

“Considering how long the movie took to get anywhere, I’m surprised he caught me.”

That exchange had better pacing than the screenplay.

They asked which hospital I wanted.  I chose Mount Sinai.  After leaving ancient Greece, Mount Sinai somehow felt like the more biblical choice.  To complete the picture, I happened to be wearing a Wonder Woman T-shirt and gold sneakers.  If Hermes suddenly needed a messenger, I was dressed for the job.

Odysseus spent ten years trying to get home.  Mine took one e-scooter, one ambulance, one tub of Greek yogurt and one sarcastic paramedic.  Homer wrote the better epic.  Christopher Nolan filmed one.  Toronto gave me the better odyssey.