UPDATE: I’ve now seen The Odyssey, and it doesn’t play out quite the way it’s been reported. The film doesn’t flat-out crown Elliot Page’s Sinon the greatest warrior ever. What it does do — and I’m keeping this spoiler-free — is make it clear why a character would say something like that about him. The sentiment is earned on screen; the exact wording making the rounds is tidier than what’s actually in the movie.
After months of Universal refusing to name Elliot Page’s role in The Odyssey, the first firsthand word is in from someone who’s actually seen the movie, and it comes with a line of dialogue.
In Film Threat‘s out-of-theater reaction, Chris Gore identifies Page’s character as Sinon and reveals the film itself crowns him: Page’s Sinon gets called “the greatest soldier I’ve ever known” on screen. “That’s like a line in the movie,” Gore says.
The irony writes itself. Fans spent months convinced Page was playing Achilles — the greatest of the Greek warriors — before the theory fell apart. Achilles never made it into the movie. The “greatest soldier” title apparently did, and it went to Page’s trickster.
‘They Might As Well Be Cameos’
Gore’s larger point is about screen time. Asked about the controversial castings that have chased this movie for months, he waves them off as barely registering: “They might as well be cameos.” The Page line was the one moment he singled out.
Worth noting Gore’s account also backs up the Sinon report itself. Universal never confirmed the role — it surfaced through a leaked Hungarian dubbing list — but a critic walking out of a screening and naming the character is the closest thing to confirmation the studio’s secrecy has allowed.
From Achilles To Elpenor To Sinon
Page’s role was the last blank on the cast sheet, kept hidden the way Nolan once hid Marion Cotillard’s true character in The Dark Knight Rises. Into that vacuum came the Achilles theory, fueled by a battle-worn trailer glimpse of Page asking Odysseus who’s looking after his wife and son. When that cooled, the Elpenor rumor took over, the drunk crewman who dies on Circe’s island.
Then came the Hungarian voice cast leak: Sinon, the Trojan Horse deceiver from Virgil’s Aeneid who doesn’t appear in Homer’s poem at all, and who in some accounts is Odysseus’s cousin, connecting Page directly to Matt Damon’s lead.
The Backlash That Followed The Mystery
The mystery role was never just trivia. It became a flashpoint in the casting controversy that made the countdown trailer Nolan’s most disliked ever and pushed the count past 700,000 as Nolan brushed it off with “comes with the territory.”
Per Gore, the flashpoint amounts to a cameo. The Odyssey opens Friday, July 17, and audiences can judge the “greatest soldier” line for themselves.
For more, head on over to our guide on everything we know about The Odyssey.
