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.

Amazing series!! Too close to homer's to poem too band who don't make the same with the Iliad.

I've read a lot of reviews. Many are favorable and many say the film was dull. But the truth, as I see it, is that it is a very accurate depiction of the way people were back then. Odysseus is even recognized by one of the gods as "the first man to use his head". The rest of the characters are emotional, animalistic sometimes, the gods are petty and egotistic and always in conflict to one another and Ithaca is harder to reach than Hades's realm.The effects are not great, the actors play almost like in a Bible movie, but actually, it's the best adaptation I've seen yet. So give it a try, enter the world of hard men and gorgeous women from which only Irene Papas is Greek, and you might also like it as I did.

A 10! I mean, why not? How grateful I am (we should all be) for Classical lit to get its due in media of the current world -- film with fine attention to acting and telling and special effects. To be literate in film language is essential. That includes TV probably moreso than the movie screen because TV is pervasive. We have it in many rooms of our homes and in waiting rooms and lobbies anywhere. Odyssey (1997) was made in two parts for TV but done as though for movie theaters. A joy to experience. A credit to excellent use of special effects, that much-abused art which gets wasted when used as just so much filler and fodder. Previous to the art of digital effects (shall I call it that?), Greek and Roman mythology was unsatisfactory on film. Imagination is a great human asset, and in reading it's everything. But when the supernatural stories are attempted on screen, and audience participants expect to see something equivalent to what they've visualized while reading, the mechanics of mid-twentieth century film language was often just laughable. And, believe me, people did laugh inappropriately. Which of course gets me to the the point of a super-great story teller Odysseus/Ulysses who, essentially, lies (exaggerates to a high end) about where he has been, what he has done on the way home from war, and what happened to his band of men. This classic story is exactly that -- one of the very definitions of the term. Odyssey has it all in the way Greeks tried and succeeded in explaining the world of humankind with every bit of its individual and universal frailties and strengths. To go too far in a review would be to deny the reader and the viewer an opportunity for discovery. Just think how many have experienced this story, and all others of those times, told and read over the centuries! The total is, of course, more than the combined total of all modern best-sellers and all persons who have passed through the box offices of all theaters of every kind since "shows" were invented. The Classics are the stuff of a liberal arts education, and we have been lacking in that regard for awhile. Therefore, such films as this are another opportunity for our world to gain the insights and wisdoms of our human past. With a hope that our future will benefit as well. Add to this the excellent filmed version of Illiad, titled Troy (2004), and our opportunities are expanded. Now let's have Aenied, the Roman adventures of Aeneas. And more classic stories. About the acting in Odyssey, to say it's just fine would be inappropriately weak. The director did not accept anything but excellence, and the actors are capable of that, for sure. Armand Assante and Greta Scacchi lead an excellent cast which includes an array of experienced stars and great extras. Assante, listed at about 5-feet-9, seems smallish for the part of a great heroic age hero. But of course the real Odysseus (whoever he must have been, whether an individual or a combination of real persons) wasn't physically big. Assante fits the sizing just fine. Let me explain that four of us saw Oh Brother, Where Art Thou! in a theater, and we wanted to review this filmed Odyssey to refresh our reading memories and try to solve the subtle Coen Brothers. We four (an older couple with our son and daughter-in-law) rented Odyssey, went home and watched the first part. Next morning we did the second part. Such fun! We intended to rent the 1954 Kirk Douglas movie Ulysses, but it wasn't in the store. It is Italian-made and actually quite good but with obvious reservations by comparison. Yet, comparison is good to do with such a many-faceted tale with such themes of humankind.