I love historical epics and mythology-based movies. Do not expect the action filled, romanticized hollywoodesque experience from this one, and it's all the better for it, though I do enjoy some sword fighting with monsters and naked chicks on stone altars.
It doesn't feel the need to over fantasize the setting and events, though it is based on a myth, and despite being a work directly connected to war, warriors and kings, the struggles are almost entirely "interior". In sum, it might be seen as a battle between individual thinking and tribalism, or "the common good". It's the dramatic writing that carries it and probably because it is a very faithful adaptation of the drama written by Euripides.
The characters carry the plot and not the other way around, and they are more dense, realistic and prone to empathy than most modern protagonists we see, even as they stand on opposing sides, which is a shame to say: these characters were written over 2000 years ago, conceptualized even earlier, and we refuse to build upon it, instead going for the tabula rasa protagonists and the one sided side characters. (Ok, maybe not so much with Odysseus in this particular depiction, though his arc in the mythos goes much further both in past and future. Here he's just plain unlikable, but then again, he did nothing good in the Iphigenia arc that I know of).
It's a very moving experience overall and I believe most people who give it a chance won't be indifferent in the end. It really sticks with you.
On a final note, you don't need to be familiar with the Greek Mythos to watch it at all - it might even be a good starting point - with the exception of a particular scene in the beginning. So, know this: Artemis, the goddes of hunting, doesn't like when you hunt her deer's. That being said...
What a great movie, an instant favorite. Go watch it. Now.
It doesn't feel the need to over fantasize the setting and events, though it is based on a myth, and despite being a work directly connected to war, warriors and kings, the struggles are almost entirely "interior". In sum, it might be seen as a battle between individual thinking and tribalism, or "the common good". It's the dramatic writing that carries it and probably because it is a very faithful adaptation of the drama written by Euripides.
The characters carry the plot and not the other way around, and they are more dense, realistic and prone to empathy than most modern protagonists we see, even as they stand on opposing sides, which is a shame to say: these characters were written over 2000 years ago, conceptualized even earlier, and we refuse to build upon it, instead going for the tabula rasa protagonists and the one sided side characters. (Ok, maybe not so much with Odysseus in this particular depiction, though his arc in the mythos goes much further both in past and future. Here he's just plain unlikable, but then again, he did nothing good in the Iphigenia arc that I know of).
It's a very moving experience overall and I believe most people who give it a chance won't be indifferent in the end. It really sticks with you.
On a final note, you don't need to be familiar with the Greek Mythos to watch it at all - it might even be a good starting point - with the exception of a particular scene in the beginning. So, know this: Artemis, the goddes of hunting, doesn't like when you hunt her deer's. That being said...
What a great movie, an instant favorite. Go watch it. Now.