As expected Nolan’s Odyssey is very well polished with the cinematics/soundtrack being very well done, all the actors with the script they've been given did a good job. However looking back at the actual contents of the movie has left me greatly disappointed with how Nolan interpreted the story 



1. Odysseus is a 100 IQ Normie

For a reason I’m still trying to grasp, Nolan decides to dumb down Odysseus to the point where his portrayal in the movie is a complete betrayal of Homer’s original text. Other than the trojan horse scheme, Odysseus doesn’t do a single thing that is clever or wise without being directly told what to do by someone else. Tricking the Cyclops by calling himself “nobody”- nope, instead I’ll shoot an arrow at him on the way out to show him whose boss. Hiding his ship in a cove to protect it from the Laestrygonians - nope, get lucky that my ship is the only one left alone by the giants as all my other men get slaughtered. Returning as a beggar to Ithaca - nope, I had to have Agamemnom give me a step-by-step tutorial on what to do because Nolan decided that I should have the foresight of an 8 year old. The only other scene where he shows a hint of wittiness is when he gets the upperhand on Circe by realizing the raven’s importance to her. The issue with this scene is that he overcomplicates the situation for himself by handing her his only weapon (the dagger), right before explaining his genius insights about his men leaving the ring he gave them. I understand that Odysseus receives a plethora of help in the original story, but there’s also an extremely large emphasis on his intellect and his wittiness that gets himself out of tricky situations time and time again. Nolan discards this view of Odysseus, just to turn him into a depressed war veteran full of regrets for everything that he’s done. 



1. PTSDslop is boring and overplayed

For a reason I still can't figure out, Nolan shoots the Trojan war like it's All Quiet on the Western Front - the same PTSD slop every war film has served up for twenty years. Matt Damon doing Private Ryan in a bronze helmet, a crew of animals raping and pillaging across the Aegean, and a hero who spends the back half of the film apologising for winning. To the Greeks this war was the achievement of the centuries. Odysseus isn't haunted by Troy, he's famous for it, and half the plot only works because he is - Telemachus sailing to Sparta chasing rumours about his LEGEND of a dad, men who never met him treating him as a walking war hero. He does cry in book 8 when Demodocus sings about the war, but then he asks for more of it, specifically the horse, specifically his own part in it. That's grief for dead friends and years lost away from Ithaca, not a confession or regret for pillaging. Nolan gets the gods incredibly backwards. Poseidon couldn't gaf about pillaging or the "innocent" trojans, he's angry because Odysseus is consumed by pride, blinds his son and then couldn't resist screaming his name when he escapes. In the text the gods are creditors collecting debts Odysseus had ran up on his own. Nolan turns them into a guilt trip so the audience knows how bad Odysseus should feel.



1. Penelope’s contradicting desires.

The scene where Penelope and Telemachus argue with each other left me a little more than confused. During their conversation Penelope nastily responds to Telemachus that she’s been sitting on  “that throne” for 20 years. This line implies that she is frustrated that a man/boy needs to hold the crown in order for Ithaca to see them as their true ruler. When I heard this line I was somewhat interested in how this would play out when Odysseus would inevitably return. Would Penelope be spiteful of her husband? Would she resent the fact that after 20 years he reclaims the throne like nothing happened? But no, instead this line is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. At the end of the argument she yells “I want Odysseus back” returning into her faithful/boring self.

Christopher Nolan dumbs down the Odyssey because he isn’t smart enough to portray the story how it was originally written.