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3

This would have gone hard in 8th grade history class after a slice of square pizza for lunch.

Review by Josh Lewis ★★★ Liked

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

3

I deserve some kind of award for keeping composure while seeing Voldemort’s peepee in a room full of cinephiles

8

THE RETURN. Ralph Fiennes’ turn as an aging, muscle-bound, prosthetically enhaced Odysseus is a revellation. Just when you suspect those who say TV offers nothing to thinking adults, something like this turns up.

Review by Jeff ★★★★½ Liked

Not lore-accurate. Odysseus wouldn't have been circumcised.

11

The Return is kind of a big ask for a mass audience. It's slow, it has issues with motivation and pacing, and an entire scene devoted to stringing a bow. But it's unique devotion to its source material is impressive... it took genuine confidence and assurance to lay out this classic feast and consume is slowly.

This nearly two hour film is the final half of Homer's The Odyssey. After ten years of getting super lost, Odysseus washes up on his home island only to find a mob of suitors lurking around his wife and queen. But Odysseus has seen some shit and he takes a healthy amount of time to reveal himself and deal with these creeps.

Far be…

1

Christopher Nolan has his work cut out for him. "The Odyssey" is not an easy text to adapt to screen, though I’m optimistic his version will be significantly more compelling than this, with all due respect. An extra $200 million in the budget will probably help. But it will sorely miss Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, two of our finest actors, as Odysseus and Penelope, respectively.

Review by Cellar Door L ★★★

Just as I expected tbh. Just calm after the storm kinda vibes.

I'm glad they finally make a movie outta this Homer's poem. This dude been thru Troy war, 10-yrs journey against a ton of mythical monster (lost everything), and this.

2

Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche are spellbinding in this new rendering of Odysseus's trip home after the Trojan War, and it's a good thing because other than the magical duo, the film doesn't offer much else. In its defense, it is set up like that. It's basically a stage play on film. One setting, very little in the way of sets, but Fiennes and Binoche are so magnificent that my eyes were glued to the screen.

5

I didn’t know I’ll be seeing a film about Odysseus just days after Nolan announcing it as his next project. While the Nolan film adapts the brilliant Homer’s Odyssey in it’s entirety, this film focuses on what happened to Odysseus after he reached Ithaca, the last sections of Odyssey.

The biggest asset of this film was Ralph Fiennes. He was exceptional here, be it his brute physicality, his dreaded weary eyes or his building rage, Fiennes was damn good here. The film is gripping whenever it focuses on him. Juliette Binoche was amazing as well, a commanding screen presence despite being vulnerable for the most of the runtime. Charlie Plummer was good, hated his character but he was good. I…

Review by Matt Neglia ★★½

THE RETURN reunites Ralph Fiennes & Juliette Binoche on screen once again for a telling of Odysseus’ return home after the Trojan war. This should’ve been incredibly for me but I found the material dry and the filmmaking to be nothing special. Thank the gods for Fiennes and Binoche whose screen presence can elevate anything to make it worth seeing, such is the case here.

7

“How can men find their way to war, but not find their way home?”

“For some, war becomes home.”

While The Return may not have been the absolute masterpiece that I was expecting, I also can’t say I’m surprised. It’s obviously a lower budget film and its true potential is shrouded behind a curtain of budget restraints and sparse moments of poor writing. Fiennes is giving a commanding performance though (as he always does) and no matter how hard he tries I honestly don’t think Damon is going to be able to give a better performance as Odysseus despite how great of an actor he is. I say this because Fiennes brings that rugged physicality to the role necessary for…