I haven't seen acting this bad since Tommy Wiseau's 'The Room', and it wouldn't be super far-fetched to say that The Room's cast had the upper hand. The miniseries has some "dramatic" moments that alongside the poor acting, poor script, and poor direction ends up feeling laughably bad. It isn't so-bad-it's-good like The Room: instead, it's straight up awful. Don't waste your time with this poor adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Anything but this.

Assante's Odyssey is a minor triumph in more ways than one. As a cracking good adventure it will already have been reviewed many times. What is perhaps worth adding is its possible interest to those approaching Homer's Odyssey or even the Iliad (preferably in that order) for the first time. It is not, of course, a blow-by-blow film of the very lengthy Homeric poem, but as dramatisation go, it is a worthwhile introduction to the characters at a basic level. It doesn't 'Westernise' the Greek mythology to fit tastes dictated by the likes of Disney, or make the ancient Greek Gods silly and ridiculous. We see Odysseus inspired to intelligent courage by the Goddess Athena (wonderfully played by Isabella Rossellini), and this will contrast for the student with the great but unthinking bravery of Hector (in the Iliad). Rossellini combines the qualities of blue-eyed beauty without a hint of soppiness. Hermes edifies with technical insights in a perfectly detached way. Thus the Gods are both external realities and that which inspires and strengthens specific internal values. The devotion of Odysseus to his beautiful wife Penelope is both subjected to his strong sense of duty (in the bigger picture, from oaths made to his fellow men) and, if that seems uncaring, shown in the strength by which he chooses to return to her even after he is offered the choice of that or immortality.As far as a mainstream film goes, it at least attempts to tell the story within the ethos of ancient Greek values. But there is another benefit to seeing it. That is, Homer is so long, so dense, and with so many characters, that although one can gain an intellectual appreciation by reading it, a dramatisation helps the reader to identify and understand the characters emotionally, dynamically, wand this brings out the force of the relationships. Assante has tried, and to some extent succeeded, in bringing out the taste of ancient Greece in a way not dissimilar to what Christian Jacq, in his novels, did for ancient Egypt's New Kingdom period. Well worth a watch!

This is a fine retelling concerning about Odysseus' journey told in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . After fighting in the Trojan War , Odysseus spends years trying to return home to Itaka . In the ancient Greek city of Ithaca , many impatiently await the return of their king Ulysses and his warriors from the Trojan War . Among these , Odysseus (Armand Assante)'s devoted wife Penélope (Greta Scacchi) and his grown son Telemachus . But Ulysses' return is not eagerly awaited by everyone , especially by his enemies . They openly court Penelope and ask her to give her husband up for dead and re-marry one of the rowdy suitors who have taken up residence in her home since her husband's departure . However, Penelope clings to her belief that Ulysses will soon return. To appease the aggressive suitors (Eric Roberts), Penelope promises that she would re-marry as soon as she finishes weaving a large tapestry depicting Ulysses' deeds of bravery . In secret , she's unraveling the day's weaving, thus delaying the tapestry's completion . Penelope knows that her trick won't work forever. The sorrowful face of Penelope still gazes longingly across the open sea . In Troy, Ulysses and his warriors use the Trojan Horse ruse to conquer the city . In his fervor, Ulysses destroys the Trojans' temple to Neptune , god of the sea , incurring the ire of Neptune who curses him to suffer the wrath of the winds . As Neptune , protector God of the conquered people , pursued him with his anger and kept him murdering for ten years . The cave of Pholiphemus still reverberates with the with the bellowing roars of the son of Neptuno . And on a distant shore Circe still casts her spill . For the immortality that Ulysses refused of a goddess was later given to him by a poet . And the epic poem that Homer sang of the hero's wanderings and of his yearning for home will live for all time . On the return home to Ithaca , Ulysses' boat shipwrecks and he's found unconscious on a Phaeacian island beach by beautiful princess , Calypso (Vanessa Williams) . His long , arduous , treacherous and perilous odyssey goes on . The dust of centuries has not dimmed the glories of Ulysses' heroic deeds . This is the story of a man who left his home , his wife and his son to go away to war , as Ulysses destroyed the city of his enemies and started back home . It is the story of Ulysses , his dangerous travel , and his home , where his wife Penelope was waiting and waiting . Good rendition deals with Ulysses on his Odyssey home to Penelope and Telemaco after the Trojan War . The classic version ever of Homer's epic produced by the greatest TV producer : Robert Halmi . Based on Homer's Odyssey adapted by Chris Solomine and director Andre Konchalovski himself . As a tale , the Odyssey is an unparalleled metaphor of the struggles of a man's life . The cast is brilliant and international , with American as well as European actors . Armand Assante gives a fine acting as as the brave and valiant Ulysses who challenged the Gods and continued his journey to Ithaca . Assante is really good looking , impulsive and totally convincing , it seems the role was really written for him . Greta Scacchi gives us a typical Greek tragedy style performance as Penelope . Great support cast as Isabella Rossellini as Athena , Bernadette Peters as Circe , Eric Roberts as Eurymachus , Irene Papas as Anticleia , Jeroen Krabbé as King Alcinous , Christopher Lee as Tiresias , Nicholas Clay as Menelaus and Geraldine Chaplin as Eurycleia . Partially shot in natural locations in the Mediterranean including islands from Turkey and Malta . The exteriors of this luxurious motion picture were filmed on the Mediterranean coast and islands described in Homer's Odyssey . The sea and the sky are strikingly blue , the islands green and wild . Colorful and spectacular cinematography by Sergei Kozlov . Evocative and impressive original score by Eduard Artemev and being well conducted . The picture was professionally directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy . Rating : Better than average take on that will appeal to Greek world lovers .Other excellent adaptations result to be the followings : the classic ¨Ulysses¨ by Mario Camerini with Kirk Douglas , Anthony Quinn , Silvana Mangano , Rossana Podesta , and ¨L'Odissea¨ (1968) TV series directed by Franco Rossi and by Mario Bava with Bekim Fehmiu as Ulysses and Irene Papas as Penelope.

A decent cast and some tight writing make this a pretty good spectacle. Poor Odysseus (Armand Assante). He spends ten years fighting for the Greeks in the Trojan War, and it takes him another nine years to survive the return trip and reach his kingdom in Ithaca. He undergoes many adventures -- some good and some horrifying -- along the way, and meanwhile at home his wife Penelope (Greta Scacchi) is fending off dozens of suitors who believe Odysseus is dead and who want to take over his island and his wife.Why does Odysseus have such a tough time? Because he overreached. After he figured out how to get inside the walls of Troy (the Trojan Horse) he bragged aloud that he could do anything he wanted without the help of the gods. Poseidon (who later became the Roman Neptune) heard him and was royally browned off, so he regularly interfered with the sea voyage of Odysseus and his men. PO'ing the gods was one of three cardinal sins for the Greeks, called hubris. A second sin was pleonexis, being overly materialistic. I forget the third sin. I think it may have had to do with pronouncing "nuclear" as "nukyoolar." This version has a couple of good things going for it. In the DVD commentary, Assante says that the writers managed to trim it down to an adventure story, leaving out the philosophizing. But I don't remember much philosophizing in the original. If there's a message in Homer's tale it's that the dice of the gods are loaded. At least this version HAS gods in it, while other films built around The Iliad and The Oddysey have tended to eliminate them entirely and turn the sources into sword and sandal epics full of muscle men. Furthermore, these gods aren't remote, distant, humorless giants. They're playful, whimsical and sometimes spiteful, like the originals. Some episodes are deleted, like Odysseus' affair with the teen-age Nausicaa. And we don't get to see Odysseus recognized by his old dog, Argos, when he finally returns in disguise to Ithaca. I don't know why it was left out. Everybody likes dogs except people who like cats. The dialog is stylized but rendered in prose, which is okay. "Iambic pentameter helps you remember the lines." (I think that sentence is in iambic pentameter, if I counted correctly.) Homer just put that into the story to make it easier to remember. Rhymes and metric lines are memory pegs. ("Thirty days hath September....") Like "The Iliad", "The Odyssey" was an oral tradition, to be recited from memory before an audience. If you left out "wine-dark" before sea, you knew you'd messed up something in your recitation. The photography and location shooting are achingly gorgeous.The cast is full of well-known names, some of whom do better than others. Assante is a believable Odysseus. He's given some time to mourn the loss of his men, as is proper, and is allowed to weep convincingly. Of the rest, most are pretty good. Except, I must say that Vanessa Williams, a real stunner, is poorly wardrobed (when she's wearing anything) and sounds like an amateur actress compared to the others. Eric Roberts is Eurymachus, the chief suitor, and adds some touches to the role as a real scuzzbag.The special effects beat those in any other version that I'm aware of. Scylla, the multiple-headed monster who snatches men off ships and eats them, is truly spooky, looking like a highly sentient and directional Venus fly trap. Ugh. The cyclops is no better. He traps the Greeks in his cave and after eating one or two, he gets drunk until, as Homer put it in one translation, he falls asleep "dribbling liquor and bits of men." The "no-man" ruse is retained.You know something? This is a pretty good story for a whole family. The kids will learn something about ancient Greece and they'll be entertained by the (considerable) violence. A generation ago, there was a great push to discard the works of "dead, white European males" from high school and college curricula in favor of multi-culturalism. By "multi-culturalism" I didn't get the impression that anyone wanted to read the Baghavad Gita or the Analects of Confucius, just mostly contemporary works critical of Euroamerican culture. But here's a literary icon of that culture -- and it couldn't be more "other" if it tried.