Clevercell Very disappointing...

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

HotToastyRag I rented this movie a few weeks back because I was preparing to honor Kirk Douglas on Hot Toasty Rag. I groaned and rolled my eyes during the first fifteen minutes. The production values weren't very good, some Italian actors had had their voices dubbed in English, and the acting style was extremely dated. As the scenes progressed, I started to get a sense of déjà vu. Halfway through, I started predicting what was going to happen! "If they meet a giant with one eye and get him drunk, I've seen this movie," I said to myself. Turns out, I saw the movie in a high school English class!My teacher had assigned Homer's works for required reading, but when the entire class flunked the test afterwards, she knew something was wrong. No one understood what had happened in the story! She tried explaining it and cited passages to help our little brains connect the archaic language to what she was saying, but again, it went over our heads. Finally, she knew there was only one way for us to learn Odyssey: she showed us the movie.The second time around-once I remembered I'd seen the film before-I was taken on a very enjoyable trip down Memory Lane. "There's the giant! There are the sirens! The pigs!" My review, as you can probably tell, is a little colored by my past. I have no idea how much I would have liked or disliked Ulysses if I'd seen it for the first time last month. You might turn it off and think it's ridiculous, or you might think it's a clear, understandable adaptation of a very dense classic poem. I consider this movie a sentimental favorite, like the first version of The Nutcracker my teacher showed the class in fourth grade. Plus, for half the movie, Kirk Douglas practically prances around in his underwear, so that's always fun.

mark-rojinsky A lyrical and beguiling adventure film from the early-'50s. Kirk Douglas looks the part as Ulisse, the intrepid, shrewd ancient Greek hero. In appearance he is bearded, with curly fair hair and with fiery green-blue eyes. His role complements his other flair performances, vis a vis 20000 Leagues under the Sea [1954], Paths of Glory [1957] and The Light at the Edge of the World [1971]. Filmed and produced in Italy the classical scenes with the Cyclops and the Sirens are so powerful and sensual: the psychological depths, super-bright colours and metaphysical undercurrent are profound. Excerpts from this film are featured in Cinema Paradiso. Actor and Yorkshireman, Brian Glover -a man of Barnsley, remarked some years ago how much he admired this film. In some ways Ulisse is a subtler depiction of the classical world than the alien, sentimental often televised Spartacus [1960].

bebop63-1 As far as entertainment goes, this movie would rate an OK if there's nothing else better to watch on TV on a week night. But for mythology buffs like me, it would rate as so-so if not below average. It runs too short a time to portray Ulysses as the clever & resourceful man that he is supposed to be, and the role of the gods in his journeys, especially Athena his patron goddess is virtually non-existent. Also, Penelope (Silvana Mangano)should have been portrayed as a woman of strong character, steadfast in her belief that Ulysses might yet return & resolute in her refusal to give in to pressure by the suitors to choose a husband among them, not as a drama queen complete w/hysterics & crying. Telemachus is merely a babbling wimp in this movie & Nausicaa unfortunately depicted as a silly air-headed brat given to childish whims & fantasies. It's pretty obvious that whoever wrote the script based the dialogue on a comics or cartoon adaptation of Homer's Odyssey without actually having read the original text.

pierrealix I've seen this one when I was 10...40 years later I can assure you that I Remember every part of it and than it gives me (along with the stories of Moses Ben Hur Jason and Spartacus ) a huge success among the Children and teenagers who have no opportunity to hear such stories who have even more suspense blood and hot pursuits than an average Bruce Willis story ! i just don't care if the movie is a masterpiece or a B-serie : its certainly a fantastic story-teller and that's what it matters.