Pankratious

Nolan done did it again, he spent a whole movie telling us exactly what this movie was about instead of trusting we would get it, he hit us with lines as blunt as a sphere and still counted that thick people with low media literacy and an ignorance towards the classics he guts to grant his work prestige would be impressed. Nolan pays lip service to "Zeus' law" (it's called "xenia" bro) so much it is irritating, we get that hospitality and generosity are social standards that are deemed divinely ordained Nolan, you do not need to keep reminding us. We get that years of war desensetize men and might render them animalistic and cruel. We get that the journey home is long and full of tribulations not just physically, but psychologically. We get that Odysseus doesn't just miss his home and family, but the world as it was before the war ("nostos", which is where we get nostalgia from btw), simple, cohesive and hopeful... your dialogue and writing actively cheapens these ancient, Homeric themes and people will still praise you for it. I guess the fact these themes, of "xenia" "nostos" and justice are as central to this movie as to the original work is at least somewhat praiseworthy though. There are compeling scenes, such as the Cyclops' cave (great, terrifying sound design) and Cersei's island (I really liked the idea of her moulding them into pigs as if with clay, great practical effect), good performances (none that really stand out as excellent, butserviceable to great throughout), it looks and sounds good, but the themes of homesickness, responsibility, guilt, regret and shame collide so harshly against the themes of dreaded return, inevitability, fate, divine retribution and just deserts that it shocks me how no one feels the whiplash. The one thing I will grant Nolan is that the reframing of Odysseus from a hubrid, prideful trickster into a remorseful general whoose ingenuity brought victory at a great personal and moral cost (very Oppenheimer, which might detract some points in a sense because he literally redid that character arc..) was inspired and well executed. The scene where he recounts the sacking of Troy could have been perfect if they went to greater lengths to show something as horrible as what the Fall of Troy is supposed to symbolise. If you want to heighten this event to the exclamation mark that violently ended an age of civilisation and enlightenment and heralded centuries of darkness and stagnation, maybe even decline, then go to greater lengths to show that during the flashback instead of telling us. Show me more brutality, show me more depravity, show me what ten years of seething resentment boiling over in one night actually would look like so we actually see Odysseus' shame in real time rather than having him report on it. Still, it was a very effective scene and the music really elevates it too. I also enjoyed the alternative history -esque plotline about the returning veterans from Troy being the sea peoples who supposedly brought / contributed to the end of the Bronze Age. The framing of their return back as foreign, blood-thirsty dogs of war who broke the very core that makes us human, trust, compassion, hospitality and kindess to strangers, through the Trojan horse plan was very interesting and portraying Odysseus as feeling the weight of this impending moral cataclysm, by seeing himself as the sole architect of this dark scheme was thought provoking. Regardless, so much is missing or badly done here. The Lastrygonians are terrible (why the child), the Sirens are barely a footnote, the simplification of Polyphemus is stupid (where is the "I am Nobody" and Odysseus' last shot back as a sign of his hubris), the Underworld scene is a shadow of what it is in the epic (where is Achilles and Anticlea), the neutralisation of Telemachus is unnecessary (why does he not help him kill the suitors) and the skipping over the death of Argos is just a lost opportunity. Also the final battle is so shit its laughable, you cannot direct combat scenes Nolan, it's ok (count the anount of throat slits in this movie). Oh, and the aesthetic direction of this movie in terms of dialogue, costume and set design is so boring, sauceless and inconsistent it repeatedly takes you out of the zone. If you set your movie in the setting of the original, you are expected to do better in adhering to that setting, and it is a sign of a competent, engaged and eager audience if they call out your lack of historical and thematic authenticity. If you wanted the degree of creative freedom you took here, you could have kept the narrative and thematic blueprints of the original story and characters, applied them to a different setting, real or imaginary, which would liberate you of the duty of aesthetic authenticity, and your audience from the dreaded "it's not that deep bro"-obligation. I do not want to turn off my brain to enjoy a work of art Nolan, I should want it to immerse me in every possible way, and it is a sign of healthy storyteller-listener relationship when aesthetic choices don't jar me and take me out of the plot and the themes it is trying to establish. This thing is a 6/10, maybe a 7/10 at best

Nice piece, had a pleasantly more hopeful ending than what I expected Great, grounded acting that does not attempt to be big and bring attention to itself. The dialogue was also very realistic and felt very appropriate to the setting too. The characters were also very interesting, a lot of subtext and a lot worth interpreting that id never brought to the fore just for the sake of it, this is overall a subtle movie. That is also my main problem with it too I guess, I expected all of these threads of Nora's tenuous conflict, Agnes' quiet perserverance and Gustav's coming to grips with his paste through his art to come to a climactic head, but that never happened. Still, the movie does address all of these tangentially and competently, I just was hoping for it do so more bombastically, but that is not really in this movie's vocabulary, and that is ok.

This was boring and repetitive as hell bro. I have not watched the second movie in a while but this felt like it hit the exact same plot beats as that one, I think the climax was pretty much identical too. Like what is even the point of this anymore Cameron, you cannot keep pushing this environmental message through this device. Pandoran nature and wildflife is literally divine and sentient , it does not translate to our contemporary plights when it becomes a deus ex machina every fucking movie. The dialogue is uninteresting, the messaging hamfisted, the motivations paper thin and I did not care about a single character (other than Varang and Quarritch cause they hot together), Spider especially I cannot stand ... Cool CGI, but this movie offers literally nothing else, I was bored out of my mind and rolling my eyes through more than half of it

Gory, messy and dissapointingly uninspired. They could have done so much more with the core concept, wherein these zombies are not just undead ghouls, but living people who are simply driven to commit the most foul shit they can imagine without being able to physically resist, while their consience is still there. There could have been real horror in exploring that lack of agency, but nah we just went the disgusting, over the top, grotesque violence route, throw in some sexual content there for extra edge. I am not saying this movie did not need gore, I am saying it needed more than just that. The core couple is fine, the political commentary is paper thin but ok I get it, the side characters are all one note... Basically only watch this if you wanna see some cool practical effects of crazy violence, the rest of this movie is goofy, offputting and unable to live up to the potential of the premise.