"The Odyssey" review — Homer’s great voyage home comes to life in eerie, haunted Nolan epic
“Then I defy the gods.” A storyteller, with his loud, stirring voice, strikes a thunderous note through the halls of the great house of Ithaca — a cameo by rapper Travis Scott. He begins the song of Odysseus, the once-king of the island nation and the titular character of this tale, who left their shores twenty years ago to serve as a general in the armies of Agamemnon. Some say that Agamemnon started the war when a prince of Troy stole his brother’s wife. Others say it was all in the name of trade. No one in Ithaca knows if Odysseus is alive or dead, but the news of his greatest exploit has travelled the seas in song. At the end of ten years of impossible war, Odysseus has the thought that will finally cripple Agamemnon’s enemy. “A war!” the storyteller declares. “A man!” A man, yes. A great man. A hero. A traitor. A trickster. Some English versions of the text call him “ingenious.” But this version of the great voyage home seems to disagree with the praising of the hero. A “complicat...
