India, July 18 -- Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey begins in a great hall, with a bard (Travis Scott).

Drawing an elegant line between ancient epic storytelling and modern-day rap, Scott begins the bard's performance with a neat summary of the Iliad: "A face, a fleet, a war, a man, a thought, a trick." Armed with that context, we enter its sequel, the Odyssey.

The face he's referring to is that of Helen of Troy, played by Lupita Nyong'o. The decision to cast her led to outrage from conservative corners of the internet, populated by trolls whose tiny brains exploded at the idea of a Black woman playing the legendary beauty.

Nyong'o is an inspired choice and does justice to the roles Nolan wrote for her (she plays Helen and her sister Cly...