Emily Wilson, whose acclaimed translation of Homer's Odyssey is widely regarded as the most accessible modern version, has published a fuller critique of Christopher Nolan's new film adaptation in the London Review of Books, expanding on her earlier remark that she would be "ashamed" to have written any part of the screenplay. In the piece, she situates Nolan's $250 million blockbuster against the long history of "creative responses" to Homer's poem, ranking it well below adaptations such as Milton's Paradise Lost, Joyce's Ulysses and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, while conceding that no adaptation can fully match the original text's depth. Her intervention adds a prominent literary voice to the wider critical debate surrounding the film.

Wilson's assessment is not wholly negative: she calls the film "an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures" and praises its handling of Nolan's signature nonlinear storytelling as well suited to the Odyssey's structure of nested tales, noting that even her teenage children enjoyed it. However, she argues its narrative and emotional depth amount to little more than "an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display," and maintains that the film ultimately fails to do justice to one of Western literature's foundational texts, despite what she describes as "manufactured online outrage" around it.