Movie Review: Odysseus and the Isle of the Mists

Science Fiction Meets Classical Homer

Odysseus and The Isle of The Mists stars Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) in an original Sci Fi Channel movie. Remember those cheesy Homeric saga movies of yesteryear? The Sci Fi channel has gone to some lengths to recreate that level of authenticity. Odysseus and The Isle of The Mists tells of the island of Circe and when Odysseus tries to free his crew to sail away. Homer is a young sailor crewing with Odysseus and his men.

The writing is somewhat weak, but there is a a palpable reason to make that work. The language of this project is simple enough to be used by warriors and translated into many languages. Attic Greek would have doubled the budget in dialect coaches and rehearsal time. The simple language reflects the base action. The flowery epithets of the Homeric poems came later.

The Homeric tales reached their celebrity in the retelling. While these things were happenings it was business as usual for Odysseus. He was captaining his way across the Hellespont. He was manning the crew and keeping the galleys going. He wasn't pausing for Tolkienesque orations.

Odysseus and The Isle of The Mists has some off balance production themes that don't mesh well with the material. An electronica set of music clashes with the naturalistic scope of a trek on the beach. The harp music seems more authentic. The occasional special effects of Odysseus and The Isle of The Mists do add reality to the tale.

Odysseus and The Isle of The Mists begins with an aged Homer committing the Ithacan scrolls to vellum. Or is it papyrus? On the island, Odysseus' crew seem like a episode from 'Lost". Hermides and Eurilochus follow Odysseus as he trails the weird flying creatures that fly at him while tied to the mast. One sailor, Christos, has second sight and gets a really bad vibration. The stench of death pervades the island. The episode with the Cyclops in in the recent past, and the men are wary of supernatural elements ranging abroad.