The Odyssey leaves a trace of disappointment when one goes in with the expectation of being stung by a poison whose effects will last longer. It is the work of a master who knows his medium — an intellectual mastery of storytelling that keeps you engaged, shifts tempo deftly, and ties witty loose ends together for key plot points. It is a film that won’t leave the engaged, curious viewer without deserved fun. And yet, the departure from the original plot, and the burden of making a commentary on civilizational fall, mean that what we get is not a lasting kick to our worlds of thought. The choice of putting Xenia, or Zeus’ law, as the central plank on which the story stands does not come off convincingly. It makes the ending of an otherwise good story fall away from the crescendo it had built so well. Odysseus’ lament about his acts in the war is a typically modern, individualistic, analytical perspective — a defining feature of modern literature, a point of departure from the clas...