The trouble with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey starts with the casting of Matt Damon as Odysseus. True, this may not be as egregiously bad as John Wayne as Genghis Kahn in the 1956 movie The Conqueror — a choice so notorious that it inspired the title for a book about ill-advised casting, Damien Bona’s Starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan: Hollywood’s All-Time Worst Casting Blunders (1996) — but did Nolan really wish us to associate the Homeric hero with the man who was Will Hunting, one of the lesser leads in the Ocean’s 11 franchise, and one of the conjoined twins in Stuck on You (2003)? This is not the typical resume for an Ithacan king associated with the manly attributes of persistence, valor, and brute strength. This is your Odysseus, Mr. Nolan?