In Ancient Greece, in the city of Ithaca, almost 20 years have passed since Odysseus went on his mission. Various men are seated at different tables in the palace great hall shouting.

Penelope, who is Odysseus’s wife, is pressured to taking the throne and becoming Queen. Most people believe that Odysseus has died. Only Penelope, her son, Telemachus, and Odysseus’s half-blind faithful servant Eumaeus remain confident that Odysseus is still alive and will return home.

Telemachus and Penelope have lots of conversations, including Penelope’s fear of sea people violating Zeus’s law: mutual respect between hosts and guests. Penelope also gets impatient with Telemachus at times. But he is willing to claim the throne if necessary.

Sometime later, there is a flashback to when Odysseus and Penelope were in bed together nearly 20 years before, when Telemachus was just a baby. Odysseus is telling Penelope that he might not return from his journey. In addition, he adds that when the time comes, Telemachus needs to be told that he will take his father’s place if he dies.

In the present, Telemachus goes to find his father’s whereabouts while accompanied by a family friend. Later, the scene switches back into the great hall, where a fight actually breaks out.

Stakes continue to rise throughout the story.

I read a novel adaptation of this myth in sixth grade in school. We also watched the movie adaptation of The Odyssey from the 20th century. And that version was way more faithful to the book we read.

Unfortunately, this adaptation had too many changes that deviated it from its source material. For instance, the opening began about 2 decades after Odysseus left. I was hoping it would go back to the time Telemachus was born, which is how it actually began in the novel.

But it kept lagging and lagging with more scenes that I did not recognize. At some point, it did show flashbacks of Odysseus with Calypso the nymph and in the Trojan War. Yet it took forever to get to that.

In fact, I will say that I couldn’t even make to those moments. I walked out of the theater prior. Those particular scenes I mentioned were read off of Wikipedia.

I will confess that a lot of my negative feelings come from the fact that I had read the book and seen an older movie more faithful to it before. If I hadn’t, then maybe I would have been more accepting of this movie as it is.

I do admire the casting choices of Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus. I found it interesting that Tom Holland did an American accent for his part in this film even though he’s British.

But overall, The Odyssey failed to please me as much as I hoped. I don’t know when that older movie I saw in sixth grade came out. But I would recommend that one much more.

I give this film 2.5 out of 5 stars.