osielescalante-59762 I haven't seen acting this bad since Tommy Wiseau's 'The Room', and it wouldn't be super far-fetched to say that The Room's cast had the upper hand. The miniseries has some "dramatic" moments that alongside the poor acting, poor script, and poor direction ends up feeling laughably bad. It isn't so-bad-it's-good like The Room: instead, it's straight up awful. Don't waste your time with this poor adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Anything but this.

tankace It is the anniversary of this historic mini-series which here in Greece back in High- School our history and philosophy teachers always said to us to watch it. And truth to be told ,this time they we right, the series is at least a decent take of one of the most famous adventure stories of all time and one of the oldest to.So to finish with this part quickly yes the series has taken several liberties with the source material and yes the parts about the Trojan War are perhaps the one of the biggest strays of a source material since Braveheart, Apocalypto, Pocahontas, the Patriot and Pearl Harbor. However unlike those films it has quality story-telling, nice scenery and a respect to the adapted material ,so it is more a case of the 300 and the Last Samurai. And as I wrote we have an adapted material, so it is the take of the directing, producing and writing team of the story not the story itself for the Odyssey is a monster of a book! For that the creative team has to be faithful to the themes, major plot points and characters of the story and that mini-series actives this goal. Now the acting ,in all honesty, is passable ,with the exception of Odysseas, Penelopy and Tilemacos, who are portrait very well. Well it is the story of Odysseas and his family isn't it? I think ,is logical to get the best parts of it, though the rest of the cast do a good work ,so no real complains here.The effects are quit good event two decades after dispute the facts we are talking about a TV-budget adventure. The creatures of the myth are depicted very good and even now when I re-read the Odyssey when I want to think of the creatures, I use their incarnation from the series and the same applies for the human characters in a lesser extent.In general we have a decent adaptation of Homer's work and was presumably the best we could get back then, which in the end is "Not too bad at all". Now if it is a remake of that I have no idea, let's hope that it will be as respectful as this series.

david-sarkies I will open with the same statement that I made in regards to that brilliant movie Troy. To make a movie out of the 'Epic Cycle' namely the story of the Trojan War, will require a television series of at least three seasons. I floated that past a friend of mine who had also studied classics today and she pretty much agreed with me. I better try to steer away from Troy though, because it is very, very likely, that I will end up talking more about that movie that this mini-series.The Odyssey is based on the epic poem by Homer of Odysseus' journey home after the Trojan War. Now, I recently reread the Odyssey so it is still quite fresh in my mind, and I can say that this particular poem actually does contain all of the information one needs to know in regards to the Trojan War, however the Trojan War is only a background to the story, as we focus mainly on Odysseus' homecoming. The poem itself is divided into 24 books, or chapters (the term book comes from the fact that the story was inscribed onto 24 scrolls) and the entire book is divided into 6 sections of 4 chapters each. However, the way the poem is constructed makes it difficult to tell the story linearly, and also there is a huge question mark over what actually happened to Odysseus between when he left Troy and when he arrive at the land of the Phoecaians. That is beside the point because this telemovie is drafted linearly and does not raise any doubt as to whether Odysseus actually had these adventures.I have said a lot more on the Odyssey and the character of Odysseus (and others) elsewhere, and I will not repeat any of this here. However, I have noted that, ignoring the introduction regarding the Trojan War (it was incredibly cut down, and ignored Patrocolus), that there are a number of events that were dropped from this movie. It is indicated that the reason Poseidon was angered at Odysseus is because of his arrogance and his rejection of the gods. This is not quite true, and had a lot more to him being involved in defiling Poseidon's temple. Secondly, one of the reasons none of his crew survived was because they killed and ate Apollo's cattle. This was a specific curse that was placed upon them that was never mentioned. I am glad that they had Telemachus' journey to Sparta, but it was a lot different in the book. Finally, they completely cut out the end where Penelope tests Odysseus to make sure he really is Odysseus.What I did like about this film was the Minoan architecture that was used for the palaces. One could argue that the setting for the telemovie was during the Mycenean period, but to be honest we really know little about the architecture of Mycenean Greece, and it is more likely than not that they borrowed a lot from the Minoans. It is one of those things that after you had visited Knossos you suddenly notice the style of architecture that is used in the film. Prior to my visit there I simply did not think about it, but afterwards, I said, woah, that's Minoan.This is an enjoyable movie, though like most movies, not anywhere near as faithful to the original as it could be (despite requiring three seasons to do properly). It is very long though, but once again, they do have to fit a lot into it, in particular the background. However, I have watched it twice now, and do quite like it.

Blueghost I should've been doing a number of other things when this two part television special aired many years ago. But the scope and authenticity of the production had me hooked. As with all translations of literature to the screen (big and small) there is some reworking of the root tale, and Hallmark Entertainment's offering of "The Odyssey" is no different.But, if you can ignore the truncation of the prequel "The Illiad", and the truncation of characters (Patrokles comes to mind), then you, as an English speaking audience member, should be able to enjoy this very lavish and very wide of scope television production.This is not a Greek fantasy epic of old Hollywood, where sets, costumes and social undercurrents of Greek society are cleansed for a general middle American audience. No. This production shows the Greek tale as it might have been imagined during the time it was originally told. The dirt floors of primitive dwellings, the simple skins, armor and weapons used, along with some of the musical and other artistic endeavors of the time. Classic Greek mythology is presented within an authentic Classic Greek setting.The tale tells mostly the events from the epic poem, but also gives a more down to Earth and contemporary spin by presenting the test the ancient Greek gods put forth to both King Odesseus and Queen Penelope. Admittedly because of the masculine nature of the classic tale, husband and wife are given different focuses, but both are driven to and beyond the point of temptation while still maintaining their deep love for one another.I have no real complaints about this film. Some of it was shot on Betacam and transferred to 35mm (possibly a high grade 16mm), and it shows in some of the shots. But scope of the film makes up for a minor technical quibble.A fairly good watch, and unexpected production value from a made for TV movie. The DVD could've been more complete with subtitles, and perhaps a music only audio track or commentary. But as it stands now it's enough to have this minor gem preserved on optical media.Enjoy :-)