If we've got a thread for Cheetah Girls 4, we should probably have one of this too x

Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the Greek epic poem that has become one of the most widely studies, recognisable and influential works in Western literature. Released yesterday, it's already looking at some very good numbers.

There has been a few controversies surrounding this film and the trailers received quite a lot of backlash for the dialogue, design and casting not reflecting the original source material and it generally looking a bit too Hollywood-ised. Casting of black and a trans actors has sadly led to the usual racist/bigoted grifters also speaking out against it.

However, it hasn't hurt the film, reviews are absolutely glowing and it's looking like a very strong opening (not helped by there being very little out to challenge it!).

I haven't seen this yet as every screening is rammed (and BFI IMAX is booked out until next month!), and I'd like to finish reading the original text first (Fittingly, I'm reading the Emily Wilson translation which Nolan used himself as a basis for the dialogue), but do discuss if you have seen it x

My BFI tickets are booked in for 31st. Hyped. Gonna hold off until then and use it as my first viewing for the movie.

I’m quite picky with these kinds of movies though. I tend to appreciate them but often I find the story loses me/becomes a bit of a bore/chore for me to enjoy on a personal level.

I feel like this will have so much more going for it for me than other “epics” of a similar ilk though so we’ll see!

3 freaking hours! Yeah this film would bore me massively

Saw this Friday night - not normally my usual choice for a film but really enjoyed it. Would definitely recommend to film buffs

I saw this today and I absolutely loved it. Took a little bit of time to really get going but once it hit a point in a cave (without giving anything away), I was completely hooked from then onwards right to the end.

It's a long film so if it's not your thing then you're going to be in for a hard time with it, my husband hated it! 😬 We walked out and I was like "I loved it, amazing, wow!" and he was "I hated it, I didn't have a clue what was going on, I just wasted three hours of my life" 😂🫢

Just got back from seeing this and I absolutely loved it… and these kind of films aren’t usually my vibe so that’s saying something!

Considering it was virtually 3 hours long, it didn’t seem to drag at all. And I agree with @Spiceboy that it certainly got properly going once the gang reached the cave! 👀 From that point onwards, it was pretty much full steam ahead!

There were a few moments I had to shield my eyes with my hand mind you, guess I’m a little bit squeamish but I suppose it wasn’t too gory or anything (it’s only a 15 afterall!)

But all in all, thoroughly enjoyed and would absolutely recommend to anyone who’s still undecided about seeing it!

What @Lee_J11 & @Spiceboy said tbh.

Most Christopher Nolan films gloss right over me, this one was excellent (particularly from the cave onwards lol)

Saw this today as well (morning screening was probably the only one I could find that wasn't packed out!), and it's really impressive, see it on the biggest screen possible if you can, it's truly a film that just enriches all your senses in a great way. Truly a masterpiece of filmmaking even for Nolan, having just read the book, it did really enhance it and it was wonderful seeing things like the cyclops, underworld and sirens come to life, and the additions were interesting and took the themes a bit further than the text was known for.

One thing I have been seeing criticised that I did agree was that the dialogue did feel a bit too modern, I wish they'd not used 'dad' in particular, it took me out of it a bit and felt like a standard historical epic, which yes I know it is but for the original one of these, I'd have wanted it to stand out more! Still, that time flew by, highly recommended.

In all honesty I watched this before I saw the 'controversy' around the language and have to say that I didn't even notice it that much. It's a massive departure from conventions of fantasy characters speaking in English accents but it didn't register that much with me.

What I did find a bit strange was the rewriting of Odysseus's character. It's kind of there in moments but he's much more humble and likeable in this which makes him seem far more relateable and empathetic, whereas he was always previously written as full of hubris and arrogance, which is why he has to suffer so much.

I think a little more could have been done to flesh out the supporting characters ideally but as brilliant as the film is visually I felt it really needed to be tackled like Dune was and have perhaps 2 films to properly tell the whole story. Possibly because the story is perhaps the most familiar in all history, (second only to the New Testament?) they felt comfortable with breezing through Scylla & Caribdes and the Sirens and ignoring 'the bed test', the Lotus Eaters and the bag of winds entirely. Might have been worth putting Achilles' shade in there too but that's a minor quibble. Felt a little like the first half took its time to get in to the details and then rushed the second half of the journey but the ending reclaims lost ground and brings it home in style.

That said it is a film where every cast member knocks it out of the park - especially Hathaway and Morton (Oscar nods?) - and it's hard to find fault in.

As a treatise of PTSD it works really well and I think Nolan deliberately leaves just enough room that you can interpret it as having much of his travels as playing out in Oddyseus's mind, since he's clearly positioned as an unreliable narrator.

I feel like a bit of a square lol but I wasn't exactly a fan of this. The best I can say is probably just that it wasn't really 'for me'. I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it personally. I did give it 3 stars out of 5 on Letterboxd as anything less would've felt quite heinous, it just wasn't really my thing I guess.

33 minutes ago, matto said:

I feel like a bit of a square lol but I wasn't exactly a fan of this. The best I can say is probably just that it wasn't really 'for me'. I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it personally. I did give it 3 stars out of 5 on Letterboxd as anything less would've felt quite heinous, it just wasn't really my thing I guess.

I feel very similar! I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it - but I didn’t dislike or not like it coz I did. The horror side of it (Cyclops, Circe etc..) were definitely my favourite moments of it. I thought the performances were ofc great but my standouts were actually John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel and Samantha Morton.

But on the whole, I thought the story wasn’t really my thing. I knew the basic, BASIC stuff of this story, but never really cared to delve further.

Also I think I found the experience of it being ENTIRELY shot in IMAX on an IMAX screen to be quite overwhelming somewhat.

As I said though, I did like it. Just not to the extent I expected to or wanted to. I prefer this over ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Dunkirk’ though - the 2 Chris Nolan movies I feel this is most comparable to.

I haven't seen 'Oppenheimer', flop movie fan lmao

I might go ahead and rent it from YouTube at some point soon-ish though (that's right, I rent movies from YouTube quite a bit x)

((if they're not available on Netflix, Prime or Disney+))

Lived up to the hype.

Really impressive soundscape and cinematography but so many flaws for me.

The biggest one was the decision to cast every single A-list movie star going. I saw a comparison to LOTR which, when first released, had a small handful of stars but the film made unknown people into stars because they were perfectly cast. This did the opposite - it threw in every big name in Hollywood just for the sake of it. I didn't see Athena, I saw Zendaya. I didn't see Helen of Troy, I saw Lupita etc etc. Nolan could've cast actors better suited to these historical figures rather than ticking off all the big seat fillers. I didn't once feel like I was transported to Ancient Greece because it was so blatantly Hollywood.

Some cast members were great, don't get me wrong - I think Hathaway was the runaway performance and Holland worked too (and Pattinson to some extent).

I found some scenes incredibly underbaked too. Cerce scene was phenomenal but a 10 second conversation of "aww please turn my friends back to human" and she was like "ok cool, sorry 'bout that, sure x".

I'd probably give it a 7 out of 10. I was blown away but some of the cinema, but ultimately it was too big a tale to tell in 3 hours and a TV series or a trilogy may have given the legendary tale more justice and a more inspired cast.

9 hours ago, HausofMayhem said:

Really impressive soundscape and cinematography but so many flaws for me.

The biggest one was the decision to cast every single A-list movie star going. I saw a comparison to LOTR which, when first released, had a small handful of stars but the film made unknown people into stars because they were perfectly cast. This did the opposite - it threw in every big name in Hollywood just for the sake of it. I didn't see Athena, I saw Zendaya. I didn't see Helen of Troy, I saw Lupita etc etc. Nolan could've cast actors better suited to these historical figures rather than ticking off all the big seat fillers. I didn't once feel like I was transported to Ancient Greece because it was so blatantly Hollywood.

Some cast members were great, don't get me wrong - I think Hathaway was the runaway performance and Holland worked too (and Pattinson to some extent).

I found some scenes incredibly underbaked too. Cerce scene was phenomenal but a 10 second conversation of "aww please turn my friends back to human" and she was like "ok cool, sorry 'bout that, sure x".

I'd probably give it a 7 out of 10. I was blown away but some of the cinema, but ultimately it was too big a tale to tell in 3 hours and a TV series or a trilogy may have given the legendary tale more justice and a more inspired cast.

I feel you've hit the nail on the head re the casting. Especially when those actors didn't really get the material they needed to really sink their teeth into to make these actual characters. It was all quite overwhelming tbh.

A TV series would've been cool. I would love to have explored more of everything. Especially the Sirens! That was so wasted!

Well, you guys just killed any hype I had for this!!! 🎬

Nolan is my fave director, and he still hasn’t done anything wrong for me, so I refuse to believe that his biggest movie is one of his worst!!!

I’m still not able to find an IMAX seat in NYC. Perhaps there’ll be some availability in September!!! 🤞