As every other reviewer has said, this miniseries is nothing short of a masterpiece. Basically, Homer's Odyssey, telling the story of Odysseus and his journey home to the island of Ithaca. This show gets almost everything right. It's more faithful to the source material than I would think possible for an adaptation from text to film; most of the lines in the movie feel like they are taken directly from a good translation of the original poem. It doesn't skip a single major plot point of the story or any of Odysseus's trials like other adaptations, and every single major character makes an appearance. When the movie takes liberties, it does it in the perfect way for an adaption to film. Odysseus's bow! - it's one of the coolest weapons in a fantasy story I've ever seen - two giant elk horns banded together. The show adds an ethereal feeling to all the gods, magic, and mythological elements of the story, with strange, future-like settings. Whenever the show returns to the island of Ithaca, the setting is grounded, jumping back to reality. The acting from all the characters is good or better. The Odysseus actor does a fantastic job with rage/cunning, though I did think he fell short in emotional scenes of love (returning to his wife/son). The actress playing Penelope did such an outstanding job that I will never picture Penelope in my head any other way. It is one of the best performances by a female lead I have ever seen - I was almost in tears when she reunited with Odysseus at the end of the story. The music is well done too; it's just a little synthetic, but with some ancient stringed instruments, and perfectly matches the scenery. If there's one place the show comes up short, it's in the choreography of action scenes. They just don't look at all believable, and they use a lot of cutting to try and hide it. It took me out of the show in a few places, but fortunately there aren't a ton of hand-to-hand combat scenes. Overall, this is a glorious rendition of Homer's epic classic. I'd give it a 9.5, which rounds up to 10, so there you go!
Review of Odissea
