Would you look at that, Nolan actually made me feel… emotions?

Master tactician king Odysseus never returned home from the Trojan War. Now his wife and son risk losing their city to black-hearted men. Can Odysseus find his way home?

The Odyssey, written by Homer, tells the ancient Greek legend of Odysseus, and is more than two thousand years old. We’ve had a lot of adaptations of ancient history and mythology from Hollywood over many decades. Writer/director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, Oppenheimer) presents this newest interpretation. It has a star-studded cast, including Matt Damon (The Last Duel) Tom Holland (Marvel’s Spider-Man movies) Anne Hathaway (Devil Wears Prada) and Robert Pattinson (The Drama) and many more.

The director is known for his technical brilliance, stark realism, and a love of IMAX. Do these things translate into adapting Greek legends?

(Well, for a start I didn’t watch in IMAX. Fight me; show times did not align for me)

The film follows several characters during the time after the Trojan War (the one with the wooden horse) with Odysseus (Damon) far from home. His brilliant tactics won the war, but at the cost of years away from his kingdom and family. His wife and queen, Penelope, (Hathaway) lives in the grim determination that he will return one day, despite a small army of suitors wishing her hand in marriage. Her and Odysseus’s son, Telemachus (Holland) is determined to rid their home of this rabble, and find his father.
What none of them realize, is the journey Odysseus must endure to reunite them. With the ephemeral gods watching him and his men, the seas and obstacles threaten to destroy them all.

I grew up with the old Ray Harryhausen movies, such as Jason and the Argonauts. Okay, mostly Jason and the Argonauts (1963) by Don Chaffey. It is a wonderful film with incredible effects of the time, as well as a very classic interpretation of Greek mythology. Then there are other interpretations, such as Immortals (2011) by Tarsem Singh, which tells the tale of Theseus. I’ve only seen it once, but it lives in my mind as a visually striking movie (as most Tarsem Singh movies are). And of course, the Clash of the Titans remake from 2010, with Liam Neeson shouting, “Release the Kraken!”

Why am I talking about these movies? Because Christopher Nolan is a peculiar choice to adapt this sort of movie. His movies are, across the board, clean and efficient, modern, and stuffed with technical prowess. But Nolan has a personal interest in Greek mythology, turns out. In fact, 2004’s Troy (starring Brad Pitt) that depicted the Trojan War, was originally going to be directed by Nolan. So he clearly has had a love of the material for years.

2026’s The Odyssey is a good movie. It is probably awesome in IMAX. Despite its trappings of ancient times, Nolan’s stylistic stark cinematography is here. Interiors are sheer stone surfaces, and exteriors are often extremely wide shots and monochromatic hues. Be it open oceans, beaches, or fields. The score, by Ludwig Göransson goes from thrumming to bombastic.

If I am to address the negatives first… it is that The Odyssey‘s opening act is the weaker part. Nolan can’t help himself but cut the narrative into needless flashbacks and time-jumps and location jumps. We open before the war, then after, then during. We see the war, then the “present” time, then somewhere else. It is annoying. But fortunately, Nolan calms down through the second and third acts with more traditional pacing.
I’m also not sure about Matt Damon as Odysseus, or Tom Holland as Telemachus. Granted, such a legendary character as Odysseus cannot be an easy role to capture on screen. But I never really felt much “kingly” energy, or “master tactician” from him. While Holland is inescapably Tom Holland. I only see the actor. There’s a certain prestige (pun intended?) in acting in a Nolan movie that brings big names.

There are certain visual style choices that feel very Nolan and less “Greek mythology” as well. The Laestrygonians (yes, I had to look it up) are giants who attack Odysseus’s party. But their armour looks distinctly… wrong. While they do look alien, and maybe that was the intent, they look fake. Which diminishes the fact that the action is practical effects. While we are on the topic of armour, Trojan War general Agamemnon is as imposing as a letterbox. That helmet gives him zero peripheral vision.

Another couple of issues… for all Nolan’s technical prowess, I found the sound mixing very lacking. I noticed this in Oppenheimer as well. Several times the dialogue was overwhelmed by music and other sounds. Finally, the language used in the film is modern. For example, someone dropping the F-bomb in ancient Greek times is more egregious to me than the American accents.

Those are probably the main issues. Without getting into nuances and story beats that are probably Homer originals (no, I’ve not read it… yet)

Everything else is remarkably quite good. The second and third act pacing is excellent. With the second act covering a great deal of what we are here for: Odysseus’s sea-bound journey full of monsters and terrible vignettes. There was the beating heart that powered classic movies such as Jason and the Argonauts. Just through Nolan’s monochromatic lens. Whirlpools are daunting and imposing. Monsters are underplayed but no less threatening. These creatures we are familiar with (mostly) and so the cinematography’s coyness in showing them felt right somehow. The alternative is to over-expose them.

Similarly, with the gods themselves. Odysseus is privy to visions of Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare (played by Zendaya, who really likes to haunt men in sandy vistas) who appears and disappears like the wind. Other gods are largely ephemeral, elemental forces. But the movie isn’t without literal magic. I wouldn’t spoil moments, but things do get suitably spooky and creepy at times.

The other side of the final two acts are Queen Penelope and her suitors. The suitors are a drunken rabble “led” by Robert Pattinson’s draft-dodging and slimy Antinous. These scenes are more grounded in real-world politicking and subtext, which Nolan does enjoy injecting into his movies. There’s a great idea of “Zeus’s Law”, which is to always welcome strangers, because they might be gods in disguise. This makes the homestead a welcoming place. This is a theme for the characters and the world, and it works very effectively.
Anne Hathway steals all of these scenes, absolutely transformative and convincing. While I personally enjoyed the odyssey portion of the movie more, the final payoff of these more intimate scenes was perhaps the most emotionally powerful work Nolan has ever done.

It isn’t the purest interpretation of Greek mythology. If that’s what you are looking for, contemporary dialogue and odd costumes will deter you. But if you are looking for something new from Nolan, something unique in our current era of cinema, The Odyssey is a very good shout. I barely noticed the two hours and fifty minutes.