Overrated and overhyped

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Amazing series!! Too close to homer's to poem too band who don't make the same with the Iliad.

the first virtue - to see it is the best way to determine a child to read "Odissey". not surprising for an Andrei Konchalovski film. but surprising for the great way for give a so faithful adaptation of one of the great books of European culture. and a realistic Ulyses, different by the recipes of Kirk Douglas but giving the traits, vulnerabilities and virtues in the most convincing manner, in a great performance of Armand Assante. a film who impress. scene by scene. because it is real admirable work examples. and amazing science to use the special effects as tool and not as axis defines it in the splendid manner.

This is an Odyssey for people who were weaned on network TV and are incapable of reading. Director Konchalovskiy is, apparently, one such person, given the way he utterly eschews any subtlety or nuance, overloading every scene with sweeping, syrupy music that insists you _feel_ very deeply what he insists you feel, as well as over-the-top special effects and scenery-chewing from nearly every actor.Armand Assante is, of course, incapable of anything but scenery-chewing, as are most of his fellow cast members. It's as if Konchalovskiy said "OK, now everybody turn it up to eleven!" Homer's epic story is rendered "super-ultra-mega-epic!" for TV. Every plot turn, every character, has to be introduced with declamation or voice-over. Bereft of anything but Hollywood blather, this is a pathetic waste of money and effort.Save your time and read the original story.

I was surprised the first time I saw this how much fun it was as an adventure film, and just picked it up again after about a decade's rest. It won't do any good to pretend this is anything other than Homer's "Odyssey" as condensed to emphasize action and romance. It also would be rather pointless to act like these are some of the great performances in film, or even in fantasy film. Still, the whole thing does work mostly because of the excellent location photography and Armand 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 I guess, but just totally wrong for the part of Circe. She came off like the trailer park version of Circe. Isabella Rosselini, she was just horrible in this movie. Never was her awkward way of speaking English more obtrusive, and the odd sense of humor that she seems to want to bring to Athena is out of place. However Christopher Lee has a fun scene as the blind prophet Tiresias, who Odysseus must go to the land of the dead to meet. And Michael J. Pollard, always a fine actor and very amusing, is good as the god of wind. Some of the blame is surely with the director, since Peters for example is not as good as Vanessa Williams in a similar role, and I'm pretty sure in general she's a much better actress.This is a good film to introduce kids to the story of the Odyssey. It doesn't go into some of the ideas of the book, which is sort of an exploration of the ethics of hospitality and the moral value of truth (as well as of course the moral value of lies). Special effects are well done, and the conflict with Troy is covered in a suitable way. Assante carries the whole film with his performance. He's good at conveying the pride and then the pain of Odysseus.