Of course, one of them — the Tom Holland we know better as Spider-Man — has a vested interest. And the other Tom Holland is an enthusiastic classicist, and co-host of my fave podcast, “The Rest is History.” The latter is particularly a fan of The Odyssey, and had been looking forward to Chistopher Nolan’s new film version for some time. The younger Tom Holland plays Telemachus in the movie.

Still, I appreciate their recommendations, which reminded me to buy a ticket. Not for tonight (opening Fridays are such a mob scene), but for soon. I didn’t really need the video reminder, though, because the elder Tom and his podcast partner Dominic Sandbrook have done no fewer than three episodes on the Homer’s epic this week.

I’m still listening to the first one. And no, The Odyssey isn’t itself a work of history. But it is about a key figure in the defining story that loomed over and fired the imaginations of the ancient Greeks and Romans — the Trojan War. The entire Greek culture is called Hellenism, for the woman whose beauty started that whole 10-year contretemps in the Hellespont area. And as we know, the Romans were too busy conquering people to create their own culture, so they just stole the Greeks’. Remember Romulus and Remus? In one version of their story, they were descended from a Trojan War veteran.

And when I say defining story, I mean the way the Arthurian legends were in England (you know, the Matter of Britain). And the Trojan saga was at least as big as everybody in the Marvel Universe is in America today. They were sort of like all those superheroes (wrap in D.C. as well) combined with George Washington and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. (These days, we do have some tiny awareness of actual history. But history was not a thing before Herodotus invented it.)

And frankly, I’ve always been more interested in the story of Odysseus problems getting home after the Trojan War than in the war itself. Maybe I’d understand the actual war and its motivations better if I could just once see a photo of Helen herself. Lacking that, I’m more into the Sirens and the Cyclops and the lotus-eaters and Calypso than a 10-year siege.

But that’s not the only reason I’m pumped about the movie. I’ve never seen anything in the IMAX format. I’m eager to see how film can produce better resolution than most digital images. More than that, this flick is the first to be shot entirely on IMAX 70 mm film, and to be processed without any digital tricks — things like adjusting color tones were done by filter overlays, old-school. Since I’m sharing videos, take a look at this clip:

Finally, I’m intrigued by Nolan’s casting choices. Some were unexpected, but I hear they worked out well:

• Matt Damon as Odysseus. I think Damon is great, but I never saw him as a mythical hero on this scale. No, I didn’t think, like Paul Rudd’s character in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” that he was a “kind of a Streisand” (Will Hunting was a pretty tough kid), but I truly didn’t see him as an action protagonist until “The Bourne Identity.” Yet he was awesome in that. So maybe, despite not being Russell Crowe or Kirk Douglas, he’ll be just as awesome in this.
• The aforementioned younger Tom Holland as Telemachus. Really? Peter Parker as the young son of Odysseus whose father has been gone so long he doesn’t remember him? Maybe. We’ll see.
• Anne Hathaway as Penelope? Admittedly, she’s beautiful enough to play Helen herself, but I’ve got to get “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Princess Diaries” out of my head.
• Charlize Theron as Calypso? Well, maybe she could be a nymph. Maybe. Even if she is (and I’m going to get myself in trouble, but the thought insists on coming to the fore) 50. But hey — if she had existed, Calypso would probably have been older.
• Robert Pattinson as Antinous? Isn’t this the teen heartthob from “Twilight?” I don’t picture him as one of Penelope’s thuggish suitors.

But based on what I’ve heard from the Tom Hollands and others, I expect to be surprised by their performances. So I’m very much looking forward…