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I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It has the scale and seriousness of an old-fashioned epic like Ben-Hur, but with modern filmmaking that makes it feel like a three-hour assault on the eyes and ears. The action is relentless, the sound is incredible and the sombre, emotional score gives the whole thing enormous weight.

The sequences around Troy were particularly brutal: the horse itself, the men trapped inside it and then the sheer horror of what happens once the city falls. The Cyclops section was equally grim and frightening. None of it felt like clean, heroic adventure. It was cruel, desperate and often horrible.

I’m not sure the film makes Odysseus especially likeable, but I don’t think it’s trying to. To me, the entire journey felt like an allegory for him gradually accepting his responsibility for what happened at Troy and coming to terms with the man he had become. That is obviously a modern Western interpretation. I doubt Homer would have been overly concerned about whether Odysseus felt guilty for raping, pillaging and conquering, but we inevitably view an ancient story through a modern moral lens.

The fuss about Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o was completely overblown. Both were perfectly good in their roles and neither casting choice harmed the film in the slightest. People had worked themselves into a state over very little, no surprise there. They don't even have major parts.

My only real criticism is that there’s virtually no humour at all. Even a film this dark could have used the occasional moment of relief. Other than that, it’s a stone-cold brilliant film: epic, exhausting, emotional and completely relentless, if you like this sort of thing - get yourself to the picture to see it, they don't come about that often. This is a 3 hour film of scale and although your mileage may vary, I thought it was brilliant.