![]() Pollard is adorable as Aeolus, pudgy-cheeked and capricious keeper of the winds. Bernadette Peters makes a kewpie-doll-cute Circe.Īnd speaking of cute, the eternally elfin Michael J. Scacchi's Penelope is elegant as well as warm. Isabella Rossellini has no trouble looking and behaving goddessly as Athena. Vanessa Williams is absolutely dazzling as Calypso. Her son, Telemachus (Alan Stenson), grows to young manhood, determined to find his missing father.Įasily as spectacular as the monsters are the women who lure Odysseus into various forms of doom or ecstasy or some combination thereof. It eats you you don't eat it.īack home in Ithaca, Penelope is warding off Eurymachus (Eric Roberts) and other greedy suitors who want Odysseus declared dead. Later comes the horrible multi-headed Scylla and the whirling watery vortex Charybdis, which looks like a giant crabby artichoke. On Circe's island, a golden Hermes (Freddie Douglas) flutters up to Odysseus as Ody climbs a steep cliff he's more of a sprite than a monster, of course. Next in the monster parade is a giant cyclops, and a very good one thanks to special effects from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which specializes in this sort of thing. Poseidon, god of the sea, goes into a snit: "You will sufferrrrr," he warns the hero. Odysseus becomes headstrong in victory, as male mortals tend to do, bragging about his exploits. Finally the war is won with the help of a certain large wooden horse and a warrior named Achilles (Richard Trewett), who gets little screen time and never does get shot in the heel. While away, Odysseus and his oddly lovable yet whiny and dull-witted crew encounter strange worlds and superb monsters, starting with a sea serpent that scarfs up a soothsayer outside the gates of Troy. Scacchi makes Penelope as real and touching as one of these legendary characters can be. As with the little band of tourists in "Gilligan's Island" (which was also no doubt inspired by good old Homer), this turns out to be anything but a three-hour tour.Īfter his first 17 years away, 10 of them spent fighting the war, Odysseus says in his narration, "My hopes of ever reaching Penelope began to fade." Began to fade? After 17 years? This is a patient man, though not nearly as patient as Penelope, who waits and waits and weaves and weaves. The film's Odysseus may be weak, but around him spins a lusty saga that begins when Odysseus's wife, Penelope (Greta Scacchi, first in that parade of beautiful women), gives birth to a son - on the very day Odysseus must leave Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War. Parents who assume it's a perfect fantasy for the whole family should be warned, however, that the story includes horrific deaths in monster jaws that are probably too scary for youngsters.Īnd high school kids who think they can watch the movie and thus avoid reading the book will be unhappy to hear that numerous omissions and additions make this a less than completely faithful adaptation. As a respite from the mundane material of most TV movies, the film is more than a breath of fresh air. The very costly looking opus, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, among others, airs in two parts, tonight and tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 4. It's basically a bad impression of Marlon Brando. Sometimes he purses his lips as if about to whistle rather than speak. Worse, Assante mutters much of his dialogue, making him hard to understand. The part calls for a younger and more vigorous actor. Odysseus ages 20 years over the course of the story, but Assante looks flabby and seedy at first glance. There's plenty of splashy spectacle but very little with which to become emotionally involved. Armand Assante gives a mumbly, ho-hum performance as Odysseus, Homer's mythic hero, and since he's the central figure of the piece, the weakness is critical. But unfortunately, one of the men running the mill is not very good at his job. This is no run-of-the-mill TV movie by a long shot. NBC's four-hour miniseries based on Homer's epic poem is a handsome thing to behold, full of awesome scenery, beautiful actresses and magnificent monsters. Whatever else it is, "The Odyssey" is definitely not television-as-usual.
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