THE ODYSSEY - 2026 REVIEW

 THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS AT THE END. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

A face.
A fleet.
A war.
A man.
A thought.
A trick.
A trick to break the walls of Troy.
And burn it screaming to the ground!

Ever since I was a child, the Odyssey has been one of my favourite stories and Odysseus, or Ulysses as we call him in Spain, one of my favourite heroes ("the man of many tricks" protected by the goddess of Wit and Wisdom, always on the go -- first at war and then at sea -- and struggling with the uncertainty of whether he'll see his homeland and loved ones; always with an ace up his sleeve - with Poseidon, like an ancient Inspector Javert or Captain Ahab, as the relentless pursuer).

So when I learned that there was an Odyssey film starring Matt Damon (the Daredevil of my youth) as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway (the White Queen and the Fantine of my youth) as Penelope, I KNEW I had to watch it, and that August evening this year, Mum and I sat hanging on the edge of our seats for 3 hours straight, watching an age-old story told anew:

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THE ALL-STAR CAST

Seriously, I adore All-Star Casts, whether it's a fantasy epic like Harry Potter or LOTR or Shrek, a Disney live-action remake, or The Film of the Musical by Tom Hooper. 

And applying the All-Star Cast trope to Greek mythology is simply DELICIOUS. I have a dreamcast for a saga on Olympus (Russell Crowe as Zeus, Jason Momoa as Poseidon, Colin Farrell as Hades, Meryl Streep as Hera - and these are only the tip of the iceberg)... we got to see very few gods in this version, but both these gods and the human characters are played by familiar faces that reassured me, like whenever I see an old classic story with an All-Star Cast!

ZENDAYA AS ATHENA (And her priestess)

Seriously, seeing a coloured woman as a Greek goddess... "steel-eyed" Athena... maybe I can say that she chose to INCARNATE (take the body of) this priestess? I loved how she put Odysseus to the test, that whole "defacing her statue" test of character reminded me of the Binding of Isaac in the Bible

DAREDEVIL AS ODYSSEUS 

Two decades away, ten years at war and then ten at sea, far from your loved ones and in an uncertain world where every day could be your last, chip away at Matt Damon's Odysseus... to the point where he chooses to become a Lotus Eater himself rather than face all of that past trauma. But finally he has to face all his fears at the moment of truth and claim his rightful throne... and then, once he has put his son on the throne, adventure calls again, this time with his wife and into uncharted waters (he's Odysseus, after all!)

FANTINE AS PENELOPE 

She may be middle-aged now, but Anne Hathaway is as beautiful now as she was when she was Fantine and the White Queen of Wonderland; here she is a dignified queen of Ithaca who stands her ground against the swarm of suitors and as regent - knowing that her husband is alive no matter what they say... and when she recognises him and establishes the archery contest; that look is PRICELESS. And also the ending, where she decides to set sail for parts unknown by her well-earned husband's side.

TYBALT CAPULET AS THE SWINEHERD

To us Millennials and Bardolaters, John Leguizamo will always be Tybalt as a young gun in the nineties; here he plays a wise old farmer, with cataracted eyes, who acts as the clever mentor to Prince Telemachus, seeing him as a second chance after losing his real son to a coward's whims and the Trojan War. He is also the first one to recognise Odysseus when the latter returns to Ithaca in rags...

CEDRIC DIGGORY AS THE BAD GUY (Love to hate him!)

The polar opposite of what I said about Leguizamo can be said about Robert Pattinson, the Cedric Diggory of our youth; here as Antinous, the cowardly villain and leader of the suitors who are vying for Penelope's hand - also a coward since he got drafted into the Trojan War by sorting and chose to dodge the draft by cheating so that "Leguizamo's" son Sinon was sorted in his stead; he had it coming that Odysseus chose to execute him the last, choking him by shoving Sinon's draft stick down his throat while telling him: "When you get to the Underworld, send Sinon my regards!" Very Game of Thrones-like, that move, but nevertheless poetic justice!

THE NEW SPIDEY AS TELEMACHUS

Superheroes have never been my cup of tea, and I have never seen him as Spidey outside trailers, but nevertheless this young actor Tom Holland was brilliant as Telemachus; his feelings about his dad reminded me a lot of Hamlet - and when they met at the temple of Athena I cried; in the end he will prove a worthy king of Ithaca when his parents are away; he was well-mentored by swineherd and goddess alike, and never let the suitors grind him down...

OTHER CHARACTERS 

The nymph Calypso was also played by a great Hollywood star, Charlize Theron (the Wicked Queen / Ravena in the Snow White duology); she is also here as beautiful as when I saw her in the Snow White films; here Calypso is a Lotus Eater who keeps Odysseus hooked on the lotus flower on her Edenic island... but nevertheless it is heartrending that she has to let him go and let him face his fears without drugs.

Elliot Page (Viktor in The Umbrella Academy), a trans actor, plays Sinon, the son of Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), a farm boy drafted in Antinous' stead in spite of having a disabled parent to care for... Sinon was the boy who convinced the Trojans to put the Horse inside their walls; and was KILLED by the Trojans; Odysseus meets him in the Underworld (hence why he's covered in soil). It is Sinon in the underworld who gives Odysseus the draft stick (that he shoves down Antinous' throat) and tells him to tell Antinous to send him his regards...

Samantha Morton is here a far cry from the Puritanical fanatic Mary-Lou Barebone in Fantastic Beasts; her Circe is a misanthropic Titaness who has had enough of humans waging war and committing crime and prefers to trap the people who visit her island in beastly guises - more on that below!

Last of all, Black rapper Travis Scott plays the bard at the court of Ithaca, serving as both narrator and Greek chorus (like the Muses in 1990s Hercules by Disney). The culture of Ithaca was oral, epics and history being handed down by word of mouth; he may even be the author, Homer, or the bard that Homer got the Odyssey story from...

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THE CREATURES

Of course another reason why I wanted to see the film was seeing how they portrayed the mythical creatures - Cyclopses and Lestrygonians and Sirens, oh my! Not to mention Scylla and Charybdis...

Some of these have been done with CGI, while others like Polyphemus have been done as puppets (like in Harryhausen films or the original Star Wars trilogy).

The way they portrayed all of these creatures (some of which still give me nightmares) was pretty original:

POLYPHEMUS (with an aside on El Ojo de Polisemo)

Here Polyphemus looks nothing like the burly, hairy ogre we are used to; rather he's a gigantic hairless baby with a vertical eye (that reminds me of female genitals) and that lolls like a baby instead of speaking like an adult... it makes him look more innocent, but also creepier with that vertical eye...

The translation lectures El Ojo de Polisemo at the UJI, which I attended, have a clever pun for a title; Polyphemus (much fame) is the stronger cyclops; while Polysemous (many meanings) is the clever trickster Odysseus...

THE LESTRYGONIANS

Cannibals in the original; here they are animate suits of armour and it isn't made clear if there are humans inside them or if they eat human flesh...

CIRCE'S ANIMALS (The ultimate crazy cat lady!)

This version of Circe is a crazy cat lady writ large, but with big cats - she has lions, tigers, and even a black panther on her island, all of them people she transformed; but she turns other of her victims into other species; like Odysseus' men into pigs (as usual) and her sister (Pasiphae?) into her pet raven. Also, she transforms her victims by kneading their flesh, like a cat kneading a pillow... and while she turns the pigs back into Odysseus' men, she says "return to your guises" as if the pigs were their true form (the beast within) and the human form was the guise they took...

THE SIRENS

Homer's sirens were young harpies with seabird bodies and human heads; these look more like merfolk with finny tails, the modern idea of what we imagine sirens as... They appear to be selkies, given that they are resting like seals on the rocky coast - but still their song is as mesmerising as in the originals.

SCYLLA (AND CHARYBDIS)

Usually we picture a six-headed serpent or dragon for this one, but Scylla here is a huge terrestrial cephalopod with heads at the ends of its tentacles, living in a hole in the rock as octopuses often do...

Charybdis, on the other hand, is a maelström full of teeth, the iconography of this one has changed very little.

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OTHER ELEMENTS 

There were other elements of this Odyssey that are unforgettable as well, like the use of the Bard as narrator/Greek chorus, the Trojan War flashbacks, and especially THE ENDING...

THE BARD (Is he Homer, the author?)

A face.
A fleet.
A war.
A man.
A thought.
A trick.
A trick to break the walls of Troy.
And burn it screaming to the ground!

Black rapper Travis Scott plays the bard at the court of Ithaca, serving as both narrator and Greek chorus (like the Muses in 1990s Hercules by Disney). The culture of Ithaca was oral, epics and history being handed down by word of mouth; he may even be the author, Homer, or the bard that Homer got the Odyssey story from... feel free to add your own headcanons. The way he taps the ground to a beat while telling the Trojan Horse at the beginning at Penelope's feast is PRICELESS (and says a lot about his skills as a rapper), ditto the tapping in the narration at the end with the ending that we get and a new adventure beginning...

THE TROJAN HORSE (And PTSD)

I love the visual of the Trojan Horse here, rearing itself on its hindquarters... and I was nauseated at how they described the sordid conditions with the cramped space and the foul air (from everyone's body odour and from the people inside relieving themselves where they could). Ewww, pure nausea fuel!

Likewise, the flashbacks to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the murder of Agamemnon, and the storming of Troy shocked me to the core... long story short, war is portrayed as gruesomely as it is in real life. No wonder that Odysseus had PTSD and that he became a Lotus Eater for a while!

THE ENDING

The ending came to me as a most pleasant surprise: Odysseus chooses to abdicate and sets sail with Penelope, westward, towards uncharted waters, leaving Telemachus as a worthy king of Ithaca (he's proved himself as a ruler and a leader, he rightfully deserves it!). Already Dante and Tennyson had described Odysseus as setting sail for new adventures after claiming his rightful throne (he's a restless free spirit, of course he would get bored of home life after a while!). I adored the ending and felt that it gave closure while leaving free space/leeway to fanfic authors (and other creatives) to imagine Odysseus' and Penelope's new adventures, and the challenges Telemachus may face as the new ruler of Ithaca!

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Overall Thoughts

The all-star cast, the way key scenes and creatures were imagined, the final confrontation between Odysseus and Antinous, the exciting pace; of course Mum and I were hanging on the edge of our cinema seats for those three hours without getting bored or sleepy at all! And the surprising ending was the icing on the cake that is a classical yet modern-feeling retelling of my favourite ancient epic!