“I’m sorry, Mom,” Telemachus says to Penelope at one point. At least the movie has the good sense to apologize to us.

Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" stars Matt Damon as a noble and heroic Odysseus. It's a change from Homer's original character.

The heroism Nolan’s film depicts is far darker and far less triumphant than audiences might expect

Critics blasted Nolan's revisions. But Nolan didn’t merely adapt the Odyssey for our age, he made a movie indicting him and, if implicitly, Hollywood.