First of all, my perspective on this movie might be a little oddball, because I studied Latin in both high school and college and read both the Iliad and the Odyssey in the original Latin. As you might expect, I was also taught a lot of ancient history. So I was familiar with the message and intent of the original work and attuned to how historically accurate the movie was (with the caveat that it was based on a work of historical fiction).
But putting all that aside, the movie was marvelously done and tremendously entertaining--even if you know nothing about the story or the history. The cinematography is terrific, the sets are amazing, and the scenes are mostly "real" instead of CGI--that makes a big difference in how everything looks. Matt Damon rocks it as the war-weary, homesick, guilt-ridden hero. He struggles against fate and the gods to make his way home, and his crew is gradually whittled down as they're forced to stop for rest and provisions at mysterious and foreboding places and are assaulted and killed by various monsters--not unlike a road trip through Nevada.
There were all sorts of "throwaway" details that showed me that the writers, set designers, and the director were all paying attention--like Ulysses instructing his men, sailing homeward to the west, to "keep the bear on the right"--which is, I remembered, a reference to the ancient navigational practice of looking for Ursa Major in the night sky--if it was to your right as you faced in the direction you were traveling, you were headed west. Or the scene where the frantic sailors are pulling desperately at the oars in the midst of a storm--not realizing that several of their oars are broken in half (that actually happened a lot).
I really, really liked the message of the film, because it echoed Homer's original thoughts. The conquest and destruction of Troy was an utter disaster for Western civilization. Both the original work and the movie view it as wanton, dishonorable, and immoral. Matt Damon does a wonderful job of portraying the guilt that torments Ulysses, who fully realizes what he's done and has PTSD because of it.
People tend to view history as a single ascending line on a graph, with the X axis "Time" and the Y axis "Level of Civilization." But the reality is that it's more like a sine wave. We humans have had several declining periods--the Ice Age (near-extinction), the post-Classical Greek era (the three hundred or so years after the Trojan War, when Western civilization was almost snuffed out), the Dark Ages, the first half of the 20th century, and of course, the present Trump era (may it end soon!). Homer was aware of the cyclical nature of history; that's why his work is timeless. This movie is faithful to his message and the manner in which it was delivered.
Four out of four stars. Go see it!
