Criticism
The ancient world on screen
Screen adaptations of classical material, assessed as cinema and as adaptation. Every departure we allege is recorded in a claim ledger with its evidence attached before it appears in any review.
A classical publication has an obvious reason to write about films of classical material and an obvious way to do it badly. The bad way is to score adaptations against a checklist of departures, which produces a list rather than a judgement and treats fidelity as though it were a virtue in itself.
The tradition that produced these texts transformed its material continuously. The Odyssey reworks older poetry; the wooden horse most readers picture comes from Virgil rather than Homer; and every English translation is a modernisation. A film is entitled to interpret.
What we do instead is separate the two questions a screen adaptation raises — is it good, and is it the thing it says it is — and answer both with evidence. Every departure we allege is entered in a claims ledger first, with the passages that establish it, its classification, its confidence level and the competing reading where one exists. Prose pages may summarise and argue; they may not assert a departure that is not in the ledger.
And we do not confuse departures from a poem with departures from an archaeological reconstruction. Those are different charges with different force, and the poem itself departs from the archaeology constantly.
Current analysis
Feature film · 2026
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
Released 17 July 2026. The best screen Odyssey there has been, and not the Odyssey — a film that preserves the poem’s structure and resolves the ambiguity the poem refuses to.
The review
The principal review, judging the film as cinema and as an adaptation of Homer, with every departure classified.
Homer versus the film
The structured comparison: source, adaptation, type of change, probable reason, editorial assessment and evidence level.
What the film changed
The verified ledger of adaptation claims, each with its evidence, classification and confidence.
Characters
How each principal character is handled against the Homeric original, character by character.
Historical accuracy
Why the usual accuracy charge is framed wrongly, and what a properly framed version of it does and does not establish.
Costumes and material culture
Helmets, ships, armour and halls — what was criticised, what the record supports, and what standard applies.
Casting and authenticity
Source fidelity, artistic freedom and cultural context — each casting decision assessed individually.