Venture far away from ‘The Odyssey’
“I’ve been kicked out of three high schools, and I’ve not only heard of The Odyssey, I’ve actually read it.” – Gary Buechler
2026 has been a very bad year for classic literature on film. Wuthering Heights, Animal Farm, and The Bride all gleefully defecated on the graves of the original authors. Now it is Hom- wait, didn’t I do this already?
Copyright on the original Odyssey ran out long ago, so it entered the public domain (these days, more a curse than a blessing). Any old fool can make a movie out of it, and any old fool did. It’s probably still playing in theaters. As a, um, “tie-in” to that (very bad) version, The Odyssey from the Asylum shows that they have heard of the material, but only read bits and pieces of the SparkNotes.
It’s Bronze Age Greece. Just like the great cinematic characters such as E.T. and D-Fens, Odysseus (Myrom Kingery) wants to go home. The king of Ithaca, he’d been at war for so many years, ultimately succeeding against Troy. He and his crew of redshirts set sail, but will be delayed by storms and misadventures.
Back home are his wife (Morgan Flanagan) and son (Patrick M. Byrnes) anxiously awaiting his return, but face troubles of their own. The citizens don’t share their faith, believing Odysseus to be long dead and that someone needs to fill his shoes. The most brash and megalomaniacal of them occupy the palace grounds, demanding that the queen remarry.
Running less than half the length of its big- and small-screen counterparts, this Odyssey contains a quarter of what it should. With the exception of Poseidon (who, like in the miniseries, is not seen but heard) and the Sirens, all of the characters that Christopher Nolan removed aren’t here either, with even more subtractions. Calypso? Not here. Circe? Just a passing mention in dialogue. Menelaus and Agamemnon? Nope. Tiresias and the whole trip to Hades? Absent. Eurycleia? Sick day. Mentor? On vacation. The Laestrygonians? Jury duty.
In the groups we do get, there are a lot fewer members. Odysseus’s main crew on his boat is three other guys. Accompanying them are other ships with people who seem to be – how can I put this? – “computer-generated” (I suspect the same goes for the introductory Trojan War scenes; at least they got the horse right). Cutting the fat helps a little in giving characters proper focus, but it hardly conveys the responsibility. The suitors, by contrast, are even fewer, represented by pretty much just Antinous (Dominic Keating). Also a composite with Eurymachus like what Robert Pattinson played, he is shown plotting with (at most) two others. Why exactly can’t the household deal with this themselves? Well, they could if any guards or servants were there.
This movie includes some elements that the Nolan film missed, but in a “one step forward, two steps back” way. Take, for instance, the encounter with Polyphemus (Martin Richard Chappell, who also plays the unseen narrator). He does converse with Odysseus, so we do get the “Nobody” moment, but the cyclops is not blinded (though he still gets “a mark” on him from the fight), and the men know full well who he is yet foolishly plunder his cave anyway. For another, the bag of wind is here, but not the god of wind.
Some key issues in the Nolan film are applicable to this one as well. I don’t know any of these actors or what descent they are of, but if there are no Greek actors here either, that’s not cool. You guys are supposed to be righting Hollywood’s wrongs, not duplicating them. The movie is a tiny modicum gorier than the others but less overall violent (despite adding some battles not from the original story, like against Scylla directly). Sex scenes or nudity? Another 404. Even the Sirens are covered up. Weird how topless women were added to the Asylum pastiches of War of the Worlds, King Kong, and Snakes on a Plane (that is to say, stories where nudity was neither present nor called for) but not the one where it makes sense.
What this picture does do better than the other is Athena (Llana Barron). She has a greater presence here (even when compared with the miniseries) and, as the gods are fully allowed a place in the story, functions with the proper divinity. The dialogue is not as bad but also prone to modern colloquialisms (”Hey! Snap out of it!”). And it wasn’t filmed in Dakhla; that has to count for something.
I suppose this version can boast that it has not received a scathing dressing-down from Dr. Emily Wilson, but I imagine that the professor would not have any kinder words for it. I’m sure the Asylum has a certain science in deciding their films’ budgets and lengths, but when you’re dealing with The Odyssey, greater ambition is needed. Or just make Trojan Shark; that would’ve sufficed.
