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Visitors Review

2012-05-25 07:16:48

The Odyssey

"The ODYSSEY"I thought the movie the Odyssey was o.k.. It started out with Penelope, Odysseus's wife giving birth to their son Telemochus. After his birth, Telemochus's father Odysseus, went off to Troy to fight in the Trogan war. Odysseus and his warriors got into this giant horse while the people of Troy were getting drunk and having a good time.After the people of Tory had passed out, Odysseus and his people crawled out of the horse, and defeated the people of Troy. Then after the war, Odysseus tried to go back home but got stuck on an island. While he was there, on the island, he encountered the Cyclops. (The giant with one eye, that liked to eat people) Odysseus defeated the Cyclops, and then tried again to go home. Ten years of being in Troy, and on the island Odysseus finally made it home. When he got there, the saw his wife Penelope, and son Telemochus. They were so happy because they had thought that Odysseus had died fighting in the Trogan war.

starbursts606 2012-05-25 00:46:26

read the book

I am a high school freshmen and I am reading the Odyssey in school.This movie is just a shame. Homer would not be pleased to know that hisgreat epic poem became a cheap movie with low quality acting andcostumes that make Ithaka look like Halloween. The casting washorrendous: Armand Assante fails to portray the admiral stategistOdysseus, playing him like a monotonous pervert. Greta Scacchi is justnot fit to depict the supposedly gorgeous Penelope, completelyun-suspending my disbelief when the suitors try to pursue her. And AlanStenson fails to show us the complexities of the character PrinceTelemakhos. In the epic poem, we see him as a shy young prince whoemerges as a strong leader, but in the movie he appears a shallow youngman only driven by his fears. Also, this movie is a disgrace to Greekmythology as a whole. The poor special effects make the gods look likea joke, completely throwing away the Greek cultural charm that the epicpoem embodies.DON'T see this movie. If you want to really appreciate this greatclassic, READ THE BOOK!

2012-05-23 20:52:32

The Odyssey Delivers!

This movie is incredible considering it was made to just be a tv movie. The credit goes to breathtaking locations, an awesome, director and a first rate cast. The odyssey is never boring, and like it says on the box is a visual feast. Odysseus goes through trial after trial and always finds a way to make it work. And best of all the monsters and effects do not look fake and are not computer generated like they are now. Anyone who is a fan of Troy, Clash of the titans or the like, should check this film out. 5 *****'S

mmarcus-4 2012-05-23 11:21:22

Superb acting at various points...

While this movie was produced in the 1990's and featured fairly crudespecial effects, one has to admit that the acting, especially withinseveral crucial scenes, is superb. This is one of those relaxing yetoverly drawn out tails which, at times, features some superb scenesaccompanied by superb acting as well. Overall, this is a long yetenjoyable movie for the entire family (keeping in mind that some scenesare quite violent) which features several very tender yet adult scenesof love, compassion, passion, anger, and vengeance.A few of the scenes are worthy of any four star movie. Yet, previewthis movie before allowing children younger than teenage years to seeit. Why this preview recommendation? Simply because some parents chooseto be very careful about what they allow their children to watch. Thusthere may a be a few scenes where parents may wish to cover theirchildren's's eyes. On the other hand, this movie is spectacular overallin the sense that parents can choose to expose their children to someof the real world aspects of violence, death, compassion, love, regret,and other emotions, aspects which Homer intended to make his readersfeel, in a movie which carefully contains these emotions within the"reality" presented within the movie. In this sense, The Odyssey canserve to carefully expose your children to more adult themes which arerelated to adult life. Nevertheless, this is a movie which I recommendthat you preview before allowing your children to watch, alone, theentire way through.These are my thoughts for what they are worth.--MichaelP.S. My stepchildren thoroughly enjoyed it while myself and my ex-wifecovered their eyes through just a couple of specific scenes. Yetnevertheless the overall movie really got my stepchildren thinking andopened their eyes quite a bit with regards to the real world and wherethey are within it.

2012-05-23 10:14:13

Golly Gee Wonkers.

Out of all the movies I have seen that were made from books, this was the most terrible one I have ever beheld. I noticed a few things, but i am not going to say ones already mentioned cuz that would just be too repetetive:---According to Homer's "The Odyssey", most of the community was either incredibly buff, or wholly attractive. None of these were represented in the movie. All of the men were like little skinny rats. Crass, pusillanimous milliners. Some of the women were nauseating! Instead of fresh and striking, most of them looked dark, and many with wrinkles and other... features. --- Another minus to the movie was the special effects. If the special effects had a scent, it would smell like: the putrid odor of water running down a rusty, tin overhanging onto a moldy cement below. Or maybe smell like a school cafeteria. ~~Now you have an idea how much the "special" (a.k.a. mentally challenged) effects are like. To anybody who wants to procure this movie: read the book while being inculcated by Mr. moobetoN FIRST. Bye.P.S. Thesauruses are awe-inspiring.

RChris173 2012-05-22 22:06:53

Very Good Movie

This movie was the best one that I have ever seen in my life at school.Of all of the school movies that we have watched, this is the one thattops the very top!! I read the story that was condensed into a nicePrentice Hall book and the movie played along just as I suspected thatit would. Although some scenes were left out, the movie made me cry.The music when they return to Ithica is extremely touching. This moviewas directed well and matched the story very closely. When Athena cameto help and assist Odysseyes during his journey, it was very mysteriouson how she would get Zeus and Hermes to help out on getting him back tohis home. The suitors waiting for Pelenope to choose one to be marriedto was a suspenseful moment on if Odysses was really dead or alive inher mind when the viewer knows that he is alive. The climax of themovie was when Odysses as turned into the Homeless Man and won the gameof shooting the arrow through all of the sword hooks. His wife knewthat he was the only one that could do that and used that to proof thathe was the one to be the person chosen to be married to her without thesuitors knowing that it as Ulysses the whole time. VERY GOOD MOVIE ANDI WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN AN EPIC MYTHLOGICALSTORY!!! I would like to thank my 8th grade Language Arts teacher, Ms.Stowe, for showing my 2nd Period class this wonderful film.

2012-05-20 13:43:37

Great effects...NO HEART NO PASSION

The special effects of this film were wonderful--no debate there--but Armand Assante seems like he's sleep-walking through this movie. It LOOSELY follows the poem at parts and suffers from a severe lack of passion! Compare this film with the 1950's "Ulysses", which despite poor effects, had MUCH more passionate and inspired portrayals of the characters by Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn among others. Even the classic scene involving Argos the dog was ommitted from this modern creation. Ugh!On the flip side, Athena's portrayal by Isabella Rossellini and the actor playing the god Mercury are very fun to watch in "The Odyssesy". Still...not enough to do the story justice.

2012-05-20 01:08:27

Awesome Movie

I purchased the movie for my 10th grade World History classes. We were studying Ancient Greece and I wanted to show them The Odyssey. My students really enjoyed watching it. One of my students was eager to see the way the movie ended.

Patricia Casey 2012-05-19 22:49:14

Assante, Scacchi and Konchalovsky get A+'s.

Assante's (Odysseus) homecoming scenes are wonderful - you can almost taste that cheese and wine - and everything from his reunion with his son, to his concerns about Penelope's faithfulness, to his violent and complete revenge is compelling and very well acted and presented. Scacchi's Queen Penelope was so good in her long-suffering ordeal, hardworking and down-to-earth, yet comletely noble and strong at heart. Great character. The other thing I appreciated was the lesson on Odysseus's (man's) relationship with deity - humility being so necessary, and one's ordinary life so precious - a joy denied him until he regains his humility as a man. It was in the dialogues between Odysseus and Poseidon that Konchalovsky made me realize that the Greek gods were very much deity to Homer and not fairy tales. That said, the gods and mythological creatures in this movie were mostly caricatures, while Odysseus and Penelope were strikingly realistic. I think I would have preferred the mythological characters to be a little more serious or believable, but maybe not. As it was, the movie still made me realize what a profound story The Odyssey is about - namely man's relationship with his god and an epic love story about a man, his family, and his home.

2012-05-19 06:32:45

Readers' Digest Abridged classic...

Script writers and film makers in general should bow out when it comesto adapting classics like Homer's ODYSSEY to the screen. But of course,they can't, because movies must sell and to do a proper film of theODYSSEY would take up at least 25 hours of cinematic time. Nocommercial potential in that. Face it, when's the last time you saw"Berlin Alexanderplatz" on the screen or even for rent in your localvidi-store? Still, this version does have some strong points. Itactually has some of Homer's dialogue being spoken. And, it actuallyhas the gods and goddesses portrayed in it. And, it mostly tells it theway Homer did, albeit leaving out many scenes and embellishing others.But heck, this is the modern era of industrialized capitalism. This isart in the age of mechanical reproduction. This film is a commodity tobe sold to the Hallmark corporation for a profit and then re-peddled tothe gaping audiences of hollywoodized expectations.Hey, but this film is WAY better than "Troy". What a plastic hoot thatwas!

2012-05-17 09:49:52

The Odyssey DVD

"The Odyssey" brings great life to Homer's epic. The film is captivating and full of adventure, romance, and humor. Although it does not follow Homer's text exactly, it does a great job of sticking rather closely to the text. It's a wonderful film that will please mythology lovers or anyone who needs a clearer understanding of Homer's text.

2012-05-16 22:13:56

A great adaptation of a classic tale

Thrilling battles, heroic feats, and passionate reunions--this adaptation of The Odyssey has something for everyone. Although it focuses on only the most famous portions of Homer's epic and oversimplifies some of Odysseus's internal struggles, this film captures the spirit of The Odyssey and will help introduce a new generation to the Cyclops, Scylla, and a host of sexy enchantresses. Armand Assante embodies Odysseus--his swaggering bravado, his compassion for his men, his longing for home--and the effects are pretty impressive for a television adaptation. Great for teachers as a companion to the text: this film offers enough context to help make the epic poem accessible to struggling readers. Some graphic violence, and a few passionate scenes (though only one is truly awkward), but certainly less violent than the text itself. It's not a cinematic triumph, and won't be adored by those who already love The Odyssey, but it will draw in those who are new to the stories of brave Odysseus, master mariner and soldier.

2012-05-16 08:17:55

A good tool but not a replacement for the real thing...

This review is from: The Odyssey (DVD) Entertaining and they didn't add "extra" stuff, but a lot of details & characters are missing. I let my students watch selections from this film before reading The Odyssey. It was an effective motivation tool: Students put faces to characters when we read the real thing, had an idea where the story was "going," and it was neat when they noticed the differences.

Stuart Thiel 2012-05-15 17:10:10

It's magnificent, but it's not Homer

Entertaining, but not in a class with "Jason and the Argonauts."Isabella Rossellini as Athena and Michael J. Pollard (think Bonnie &Clyde) as Aeolus are hoots. Hermes is kinda cute. Poseidon is straightout of Sesame Street. Greta Scacchi is as gorgeous as ever, BernadettePeters as Mel-Brooksy as ever, Vanessa Williams as wooden as ever.Irene Pappas and Christopher Lee do what they can with canned "feymother" and "prophet" scripts.The biggest problem is that Odysseus was a smart and clever guy --Homer called him things like "wily" Odysseus -- but Armand Assanteplays him as a straight muscular hero, like a big-budget Steve Reeves.If you didn't know it already, you'd never guess that the Trojan horsewas Odysseus' idea. Odysseus' wonderful "my name is Nobody" trick onthe Cyclops is set up, but then abandoned. You are forgiven forwondering why Odysseus stifled his friend and gave Cyclops the wrongname. (You'll have to look it up.) Calypso's island looks like thehabitat they give polar bears at the zoo. Scylla and Charybdis areconfronted sequentially (??!!). Odysseus' raft is made from the sameplans as Tom Hanks's in "Cast Away." No mention of the Sirens. (EvenCream, a rock group, remembered "the Sirens sweetly singing.") Anddidn't Homer sing of Odysseus meeting Achilles in Hades? Its very length gives is some heft other movies based on the classicsdon't have. Give it a B+.

2012-05-12 14:07:01

wow

I enjoyed this movie fully. It was both educaational and fun to watch. My fayorite part in the movie was when Odysseus and his son got back at the men who had stayed at there house while Odysseus wasgone away. Something really weird that they did was that they sacraficed goats a lot.Odyssyeus and his men were gone for a long period of time while they were fighting in the Trojan War. Odysseus and his men built a large wooden horse, hid in it, gave it to the Trojans, and attacked them after they went to sleep. That is how they beat the Trojans and won the war. After they won they started sailing back to Ethica, but they lost there way and they ended up on some on some island. The women on the island would not set Odysseus go home, but finally they let him go. Some of the ocupations were herder, sailor, worrier, ship builder, and fisher. One of the crops were olives, and another ocupation was pressing olives. They used goats, and they mostly used them for there milk. The Odyssey was a very good movie, and I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes good action movies.

2012-05-12 03:36:01

Worth it, even if only for the one scene...

There is a striking scene in this film where Odysseus, washed up upon an anonymous shore, stumbles upon a tent and tastes the local bread, cheese and wine -- and from the tastes of these three things he realizes that he is home on Ithaca after all those many years. After five years that scene is still burned into my memory.

funkyfry 2012-05-11 17:40:15

Not bad, not bad

I was surprised the first time I saw this how much fun it was as anadventure film, and just picked it up again after about a decade'srest. It won't do any good to pretend this is anything other thanHomer's "Odyssey" as condensed to emphasize action and romance. It alsowould be rather pointless to act like these are some of the greatperformances in film, or even in fantasy film. Still, the whole thingdoes work mostly because of the excellent location photography andArmand Assante's charismatic performance.Quite a few of the other performances suffer for whatever reason,sometimes due to bad casting. Bernadette Peters is a good actress Iguess, but just totally wrong for the part of Circe. She came off likethe trailer park version of Circe. Isabella Rosselini, she was justhorrible in this movie. Never was her awkward way of speaking Englishmore obtrusive, and the odd sense of humor that she seems to want tobring to Athena is out of place. However Christopher Lee has a funscene as the blind prophet Tiresias, who Odysseus must go to the landof the dead to meet. And Michael J. Pollard, always a fine actor andvery amusing, is good as the god of wind. Some of the blame is surelywith the director, since Peters for example is not as good as VanessaWilliams in a similar role, and I'm pretty sure in general she's a muchbetter actress.This is a good film to introduce kids to the story of the Odyssey. Itdoesn't go into some of the ideas of the book, which is sort of anexploration of the ethics of hospitality and the moral value of truth(as well as of course the moral value of lies). Special effects arewell done, and the conflict with Troy is covered in a suitable way.Assante carries the whole film with his performance. He's good atconveying the pride and then the pain of Odysseus.

2012-05-11 06:36:20

Wow, what a EXTRAORDINARY movie!!

I have just finished watching the movie, The Odyssey. It was good in many different ways. It had a lot of actors in it and many of them played their part very well. My favorite character would have to be Penelope (Greta Scacchi). She had a hard time handling the fact that her husband, Odysseus (Armand Assante), was gone at war and may never return home. The fact that her husband left right after their son was born was upsetting as well. She made a promise to her husband that when their son grew into a man, she would have to choose a new husband. After the Trojan War ended, Odysseus yelled to the gods that he didn't need their help after all, when he actually did use their help. The god of the sea, Poseidon, heard him and put a curse on him that he couldn't go home to Ithaca. Odysseus went through many extraordinary adventures and many didn't creatures while trying to get home. One of these strange creatures was Cyclops, Poseidon's brother. Cyclops (Reid Asato) is a giant with one huge eye in the middle of his forehead that loves to eat humans. Odysseus and his men floated down to the island where Cyclops lived and Cyclops asked Odysseus what his name was and Odysseus said that it was nobody. While Odysseus and his men were there with the Cyclops they gave him the gift that they had brought, which was wine. After some cups, Cyclops started to lay down and fall asleep. Once they thought that he was asleep, they took a large stake and jammed it into the Cyclops' eye. The Cyclops immediately jumped up and started to run around yelling, Nobody hurt my eye. The men escaped quickly, but the Cyclops ate the fiddler. The men that were left, left the island and floated along some more for many more adventures. In conclusion, I thought that this movie was great! It used a lot of facts from the epics by Homer.

2012-05-06 07:53:55

the odyssey review year 7

The Odessey is a great movie and it is really cool. I think that the actors are great and the scenes are so realistic.Now i understand what the odyssey means. It means it is like a long journey through a mans life in ancient Greece. His name was Odiciouse.But over all it is very educational about the gods if you are doing a project on ancient greece.thankyou for making a good moviefrom Vad 7R.

2012-05-05 19:32:56

Excellent movie Armond at one of his B-E-S-T

ARMOND IN JUST ONE OF HIS B-E-S-T PREFORMANCES IN THE MOVIES G-R-E-A-T ACTOR AND THIS IS A G-R-E-A-T MOVIE