Odysseus: Voyage to the Underworld

I didn't think SciFi Channel could broadcast a worse myth-&-monster movie than MINOTAUR. I was wrong.

It's okay to make a movie on the cheap; not everyone has access to a big budget, and amazing things can be done with a little imagination and talent. But there's very little of those commodities here. Acting is at a high school level. Direction is worse. Dialogue is trite. Scenes lurch from one dull monster attack to another, with occasional babe (er, goddess) interludes to break the monotony. The goddesses look and sound as it they're reading cue cards at a second-rate beauty contest.

Why must the makers of such movies mess with Greek myth, about which they clearly know (and care) nothing? Here, Homer the tale-teller appears as part of Odysseus's crew. That's an okay idea. Except this Homer (played by the worst actor of the lot, which is saying something) scribbles notes (with a feather quill!) and fawns over the heroes like an embedded reporter in Iraq. Legend tells us that Homer was blind, and recited his stories from memory. There is great power in that idea, a hearkening back to a prehistoric, preliterate age of traveling bards and oral tradition.

A magical movie could be made about Odysseus, and Homer, but this is not it.

I've come not to expect much from any SyFy "original" movie. This particular one, though, plumbs new depths of bad writing, atrocious plotting, mediocre-to-bad acting and weak execution. It hijacked names from Greek mythology and applied them to the movie's two-dimensional characters in an attempt, I suppose, to give them some apparent depth, and then to compound the theft shamelessly grabbed some material from Christianity and Bram Stoker, and THEN, not content with making a complete mess of things, swiped an ending right out of any one of the "Halloween" movies. It was flat, predictable and never more than minimally interesting.

This movie held during the journey of Odysseus after Trojan War included Homer as a man of his crew, what is impossible for three or four centuries. The expected beginning as a B movie (bad CGI and cliché dialogues will appear throughout the film) was followed by a scene in which the crew was concerned about the song of the sirens. When flying creatures appeared surrounding the ship I got surprised, asking myself: "would this movie be a rare case of true adaptation to Greek mythology?" Sirens were not mermaids, as they are recurrently portrayed nowadays, but partly women, partly birds creatures. However, soon I noticed that they were original creatures not present in any myth, and so is the mist isle itself. Demons who attack injured warriors exist in Greek mythology, but the rest of the story does not fit. Persephone and Hades' offspring, the Erinyes, were ugly winged creatures, but also quite different from those bat-like ones with shining eyes from the film, both physically and in their attributes. As a matter of fact, this is just one more B film aiming to have the flavour of Greek myths but no connection to them. The plot is a new version of the very same overly repeated story of a evil one trying to dominate the world. Besides that, Hades is, as usual, misaddressed as Christian hell and not as the Greeks saw it, and the fact that there is a "hellfire cross" in the movie is just one more evidence of it. Perhaps having inserted an original character, a diviner named Christos, is a Freudian slip. The ending, seeming a parody of Bram Stocker, mentioning vampiric creatures fearing the signnof the cross, is ridiculous.

Truth be told, then I had no particular expectations to this movie. And I will say that the movie is entertaining enough, but it could have been better.

The story is a fairly common one; Odysseus sailing for Ithica and finding the Isle of Mist along the way. Yadda, yadda, yadda... Fairly average storyline with nothing overly impressive or new here.

As a movie of this type, trying to tell an epic tale of ancient history, the movie doesn't really manage to punch through and make a lasting mark or statement. It sort of never rises beyond mediocrity, which was a shame.

The effects in the movie were adequate, well most of them at least. The creatures were hilariously fake to look at. They looked like horribly fake rendered CGI rejects. Had the special effects team worked harder on this, the movie could have been more enjoyable. It is sort of difficult to take something serious when it looks like something that came out of an early 1990's PC game, back when 3D graphics were still an eyesore.

I will say that the props and wardrobe people actually did a great job in the movie, because the costumes and garments were really nice to look at; great details and it did seem valid enough.

Acting-wise, then the movie wasn't all that noticeable. Perhaps because the characters were fairly mundane and generic, not really displaying much personality of difference from one another. It should be said that Arnold Vosloo (playing Odyesseus), Randal Edwards (playing Homer) and Stefanie von Pfetten (playing Persephone) were actually doing their part to carry the movie nicely.

If you enjoy classic tales of this genre, then there are other movies that deal with the same tale and subject that does it better than this one. I am sure that if you are a hardcore fan of ancient history and legends, then you will find some enjoyment and amusement in this movie. For us who just want to watch it for the entertainment of a movie, then "Odyesseus & the Isle of Mists" turns out to be fairly mediocre and it is not the type of movie that is likely to be on the watch-list a second time around.

I stumbled upon this fantasy film by accident and didn't really expect much from it, even though it stars the Mummy legend, Arnold Vosloo, who made an excellent Darkman 2. I was pleasantly surprised.

The premise, about Greek hero Odysseus encountering vampires on a lost island, sounds absurd. The special effects budget was clearly small and there are some scenes when you have to imagine what the heroes are fighting since the camera doesn't show it. However, the whole thing is saved by two factors. Firstly, the writers knew what they were doing. They were obviously familiar with Homer's classic epic, with the protagonist's strengths and weaknesses, and with how people talked and behaved in those mythological times. This helps makes the whole thing plausible. They also didn't waste time on unnecessary plot detours. Further, the story is actually well-crafted and every scene is actually relevant.

Secondly, the cast perform very well. Vosloo, as ever, is charismatic, and delivers his dialogue excellently. Randal Edwards makes a believable Homer and JR Bourne is a courageous Perimedes. All this without any irritating side kicks or distracting contemporary styles of speech.

If you're expecting a modern-day horror film, you'll be disappointed. But if you watch this with some cynicism, if you're familiar with Homer's Odyssey and enjoy a different slant on the vampire myth, this is a perfect Saturday afternoon movie, which may leave you with some interesting thoughts.