The Odyssey (in theaters)

When a filmmaker does something dramatic like adapting “The Odyssey,” you expect them to have a really specific reason they wanted to do it. 

Christopher Nolan finally tells us his reason in the last half hour of his nearly three-hour long adaptation, but none of the characterization that came before actually supports it. His characterization of Odysseus isn’t even terribly consistent from moment to moment, and is almost entirely lacking the cleverness that has historically been his major character trait. Matt Damon does a lot to make the character sympathetic despite this, but it leaves his gods and monsters-filled storyline as the least interesting of the two plots happening onscreen. When a little bit of political intrigue is more interesting than multiple witches, you know something is very wrong. 

For those not familiar with the story, Odysseus the King of Ithica goes off to war then runs into a lot of trouble on his way home. Since all of this takes about 20 years, his wife (Anne Hathaway) is under a crazy amount of pressure to remarry, and everyone wants to kill off his kid (Tom Holland) so their own children can become heirs.

The movie may actually be more satisfying for people not familiar with the original story, since some of its most iconic moments get shortchanged. The most notable of these is the movie’s version of the cyclops scene, which is not only disappointing but was imbued with uncomfortable implications about appearances and what counts as “human.”

Back in Ithica, Holland and Hathaway are full on carrying the only interesting part of the movie. If Hathaway had been allowed to do more, I can only imagine how engaging this section could have been. Robert Pattinson does his creepy best as one of the more villainous suitors.

I just wish Nolan had also done his best. 

Grade: Two and a half stars

Young Washington (in theaters)

It’s hard to find a new story to tell about George Washington. The big question, though, is whether that story is worth telling. 

“Young Washington” tries to spin Washington’s early years with the Continental Army as the story of a young American leader learning valuable life lessons, but the facts don’t help the vision. Washington’s main desire is to climb socially, he dreams of British recognition, and he fumbled his first assignment so badly he got manipulated into starting the Seven Years War (a fairly well-established historical fact). The movie’s attempts to splice inspirational patriotism onto all of this feels cheap, a fact not helped by obvious, sometimes clumsy CGI and often wooden acting. There’s possibly an interesting story here, but not the version the movie is trying to tell. 

The choice of lead actor doesn’t help. William Franklin-Miller has an excellent jawline, but not the acting chops to show Washington really dealing with the struggles of war. The script is weak enough that acting is the movie’s only hope of nuance, and Franklin-Miller simply doesn’t provide it. The supporting cast has some of the same struggles, enough that good actors like Andy Serkis and Mary-Louise Parker stand out almost accidentally.

It’s not a terrible movie, overall, and will no doubt find a future in high school history classes across the country. What it wants to do, however, is pluck at heart strings it doesn’t get anywhere near. This is a vaguely interesting footnote, not inspiration fodder. 

Grade: One and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at [email protected].