u/092Casey

Just saw The Odyssey. Huge Nolan fan here, even liked Tenet, his most panned movie.

The positive reviews are just pretentious and business reviews trying to make money.

All the Oscar hype is bogus. It's "decent" in ways you'd expect for a big budget summer epic, but come on, let's be real here.

I don't know, maybe I was just spoiled growing up on 90's movies that make my standards higher than "today's masterpieces".

This was a Mid movie at best. Just because it has some striking visuals while riding a Homer classic epic tale doesn't mean it's a good movie. I mean sure the material they had to work with was already written and well established so of course we'll probably get a good Trojan horse scene and some cool visuals and classic renditions. It is "The Odyssey" after all, like the story sells itself really if they just create it on screen, like Clash if the Titans did in the 80s with Pegasus and Medusa.

It's all "hype" and studio led astroturfing with the wild praise. Here are a few examples of my problems with it. And by the way, IMDB is not publishing my sincerely written review that wasn't even that critical of it, so I'll add more depth to it here.

1. The first 20 minutes were underwhelming. It felt like they tried to use a little of Braveheart's opening with the warrior teaching the kids how to fight or something in the flashback and with quirky ancient characters. The problem was that none of the actors could act well so it felt more like a checklist of how to open an epic based on a past epic.
2. No character development. While the visuals take you into the story, like the horse on the beach, there is no development of Odysseus or Talamachis. Apparently, a young Pattinson was taught by Odysseus? Okay, but it wasn't interesting and didn't create any "stakes".
3. Then, we start getting more time jumps of everything, kind of interesting with the war, but not emotionally immersive. It's just interesting if you already know of the story from the book and want to see Troy invaded.
4. Damon is walking and talking around the beach like he's in an American bar shooting the shit with his buddies. I didn't know ancient Greeks said "F--k" back then.
5. I swear on this: the choreographing of the army men was so bad. Compare the infantry details in Braveheart and Gladiator to this, it looks like an amateur cartoon with unprofessional extras, and not just on the boat or beach but at times even at Troy if you pay attention.
6. Hathaway and Pattinson are by far the best most credible actors, but they get barely any screen time until the final half hour or so.
7. Cyclops? Yes, scary and disturbing, but we barely can see him. We see his big body more than his face with very little interaction. But worse, the acting and choreography of the army and Damon behavior in this scene was so unrealistic. There is very little dialogue or leadership by Damon who supposedly is the big leader/commander, yet they're all just standing around nonchalantly and Damon is not even showing any leadership. It's just some dudes getting picked off as they watch. Then they are scrambling to get out like some kind of a bad action movie. It was a good idea and scene but the choreography was terrible. Real men would have been panicking and freaking out. Then, next thing they are scrambling to the boat and we see cyclops' body only (his head was too tall to make it into the scene lol) chasing them and Damon's weak acting expression as he looks back. So "powerful", not.
8. Now, the Siren scene was the first scene that I thought had some deeper meaning, and I appreciated that. At least now we're getting some depth, about 75 minutes or more into the movie, but omg Damon's screaming and acting while rope tied up was just so bad. It was like Will Hunting hyptnotized by a psychiatrist and having nightmares. I just couldn't. Just shockingly bad acting. Was he crying? Wow.
9. Circe was probably the best part of the excursions. Wow, amazing acting by Morton. Like she didn't belong in this movie, she was too good. Amazing acting by her, kudos. And kudos to Nolan for taking the risk to film horror, well done to both. But then Damon returns in a one-on-one face to face with her and all the mystery and intensity goes out the window into some quick-paced sort of mind reading by Damon, and snap your finger, wallah, it's over. No big deal.
10. The argument with Patel on the boat finally was an attempt at tension, finally some drama, but it only showed what was lacking for the better part of 90 minutes by then as that only lasted for 5 minutes, and was another example of how Damon was miscast as the "respected, superior warrior leader of Greek armymen".
11. Agamemnon's "voice" is finally revealed in the underworld. Darth Vader you wonder after so much mystery and big helmet mask like a feared villain it would seem? Nah, sounds like one of Damon's young buddies at the local bar talking to him. The voice tone was like, "that's it? One of those average "dudes""?
12. Bernthal enters as potential hope as a centralized side character introduced, as someone finally having some fun with his character- there's hope for someone to like in this bleak movie. But no, he quickly devolves into wooden anachonistic line deliveries like everyone else.
13. When Bernthal grabbed Helen's face next to Holland at the meal and said "This is the face that launched 500 ships", I laughed. Lupta is attractive but the casting was so bad.
14. Hathaway must have been so frustrated acting with amateurs that she overcompensated when Holland was interrogating her: " I WANT ODYSSEUS!" lol wow. She did better acting than everyone else though so no disrespect, but I could feel her frustration what it must've been like filming some of those scenes with that overreaction.
15. The Trojan horse scene where they are inside and climb out and invade was so underwhelming. Again, Damon, totally miscast here, exits it, just like his movements in the cyclops scene, like he's playing hide and seek or jailbreak with his smalltown buddies in Boston...not like he's the leader of the legendary Greek army about to invade Troy. He jogs up into the city like an extra, not like the leader, main character.

On a positive note, the final Act was actually pretty good. Shame it took so many disappointing scenes and acting to get there. Even still, let's not pretend that at times it didn't feel like we were watching a 1200 BC version of Commando or Rambo. I'm surprised Damon didn't get an up close after bow-and-arrowing an enemy while saying "Stick around". There's holes in the ceiling with people dropping weapons to him lol, oh all of a sudden we're Stallone or Arnold now in an 80s actioner? Lol.

Overall, decent watch, but incredibly bad in many segments. It felt like this is what a high school play version of Odysseys would be like if you took away the big, expensive set pieces, big budget visuals, and "hype" by critics.

Obsession is still the movie of the year so far, better in every way than Odyssey outside of the big budget production scale.

This movie doesn't deserve any Oscars, maybe except for Hathaway getting a nom and visual effects. Pattinson might be able to squeeze into a nom bc he was the best actor in it. This is like a modernized, pretentious, and lazy version of Clash of the Titans.

2/10

So i just saw Obsession and I thought it was good, but it wasn't as scary as some people act like. It was like psychological horror and creepy more than scary. For example, it won't make it hard to sleep because you're so scared like some people say.

So I think that it's good and worth a watch but slightly overrated. Before watching it I noticed it was ranked 247 in top 250 IMDB but now it fell out of the list. It still has an 8.1 rating which is high for horror. I'd give it an 8/10, but I don't believe it's Oscar worthy; then again, I didn't think most Oscar winners in recent times were Oscar worthy either, so I could see it getting 5 nominations based on that alone.

The music/sound design was very good, acting way better than expected, directing and editing were actually pretty great, and the writing was good. However, it's not a true masterpiece, just a good psychological thriller.