Meet the terrifying monsters in Christopher Nolan's blockbuster 'The Odyssey'

Viewers of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” may be surprised by how many mythological creatures are packed into Homer’s ancient epic.

Filled with A-list stars, the major box-office hit takes audiences from one mythical encounter to the next as Odysseus fights to make it home.

“The movie is visually stunning. It needs to be seen in the theater,” said Joel P. Christensen, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the CUNY Graduate Center and a professor of classics.

Calypso reluctantly lets him go when Zeus orders his release, helping him build a raft to continue his journey home.

Charlize Theron plays Calypso in the film.

Like any adaptation of a sprawling ancient epic, Nolan’s film condenses parts of Homer’s story for the big screen, Christensen noted.

While visually stunning, the expert said the film’s adaptation of some mythological figures falls short of Homer’s original.

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He pointed to changes in the portrayals of Polyphemus and Circe, arguing that the film makes the Cyclops “more of a monster than a man,” while depriving Circe of agency.

Nolan “impl[ies] that she turns men into pigs because she has been sexually assaulted before,” said Christensen.

“This is one of the film’s weaknesses: Traditional gender roles become a shorthand for actual story.”

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“Nolan had to reduce some of the repetitions we see in the Homeric ‘Odyssey’ and had to limit the length of some scenes,” he said. “He also made the choice to limit the depiction of the divine.”

Even so, many of the epic’s most recognizable mythological figures remain central to the story.

“For people who do know ‘The Odyssey,’ remember that film is a very different medium than epic poetry is: It is shorter and visual, so many changes are required to allow the story to work as a movie,” he said. 

“This is Nolan’s ‘Odyssey,’ not Homer’s.”