The Odyssey - Movie Review

Jul 24

11 min read

The movie event of the Summer -- maybe the decade -- has officially hit theaters as of last weekend. Christopher Nolan is BACK with perhaps his boldest, biggest, most culturally significant project to date -- his telling of one of history's most renowned story's -- The Odyssey.

Fresh off the heels of his 2023 Blockbuster Oppenheimer -- Nolan wasted no time getting behind the reigns of another blockbuster, adapting Homer's ancient literature to bring the story of The Odyssey to the big screen. For as historic and enduring as this story is, a true adaptation hasn't been brought the theatrical screens since 1997 (not counting "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" -- more of a reimagining from the Coen Brothers, and "The Return" -- a 2024 film focusing on Odysseus' return from his journey rather than the journey itself).

Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest living filmmakers -- a director in a class of his own when it comes to making movies. From Oppenheimer to Tenet to Dunkirk to Inception to Interstellar to The Dark Knight Trilogy -- nobody making movies today has a hit rate like Nolan does, and nobody can make a blockbuster like him. And nobody films the way he does -- going out of his way to avoid the usage of CGI and greenscreens and using almost entirely practical effects and real locations. His visuals are his bread & butter -- and while I think his dialogue and screenwriting can often leave a lot to be desired — anytime Nolan comes out with a movie, I’m at the theater first week.

But is this latest project as successful as his others -- or does he miss the mark with 2026's most anticipated movie?

The below is a spoiler-free review of The Odyssey -- but if you want to go into the film with a completely blank slate, save this blog and come back later. I'm going to discuss the cast of the film -- who I thought had good performances, was cast well, maybe lacked behind, etc -- I'll discuss the structure of the film, what parts worked, what parts didn't, things like that.

If you HAVE seen The Odyssey -- DM me what you thought of it! I may do a spoiler blog sometime next week when people have had more of a chance to see it -- but even without true spoilers, you'll be able to tell how I feel about certain events/specifics from the below.

The Odyssey - Spoiler-Free Review

Premise

Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War. Crossing the Mediterranean Sea with his fellow soldiers, they soon find themselves battling not only the elements, but an array of deadly obstacles and mythical creatures along the way.

Cast

Character Name -- Actor -- (Prominent Movies/TV Shows on their Resume)

Odysseus -- Matt Damon -- (Good Will Hunting, Jason Bourne franchise, The Martian, Ocean's franchise, The Departed, Oppenheimer, Interstellar)
Penelope -- Anne Hathaway -- (Devil Wears Prada, The Princess Diaries, Interstellar, The Intern, Love and Other Drugs, Les Miserables)
Telemachus -- Tom Holland -- (Spider-Man franchise/MCU, Uncharted, The Devil all the Time, Cherry)
Antinous -- Robert Pattinson -- (The Batman, The Drama, Twilight franchise, Mickey 17, Tenet, The Lighthouse, Good Time, Die My Love)
Eumaeus -- John Leguizamo -- (John Wick, The Pest, Ice Age, Carlito's Way, Chef, The Menu)
Eurylochus -- Himesh Patel -- (Yesterday, Station 11, Tenet, The Franchise, The Assessment)
Athena -- Zendaya -- (Challengers, The Drama, Dune franchise, Spider-Man franchise, Euphoria, The Greatest Showman)
Sinon -- Elliot Page -- (Inception, Juno, Umbrella Academy, X-Men franchise)
Calypso -- Charlize Theron -- (Monster, Mad Max: Fury Road, Apex, Atomic Blonde, Hancock, The Old Guard)
Agamemnon -- Benny Safdie -- (Oppenheimer, Good Time, The Curse, Happy Gilmore 2, The Smashing Machine)
Menelaus -- Jon Bernthal -- (The Punisher, Wolf of Wall Street, We Own This City, The Accountant, The Walking Dead, The Bear, Fury)
Clytemnestra / Helen of Troy -- Lupita Nyong'o -- (Us, Black Panther, 12 Years a Slave, The 355, A Quite Place: Day One)
Polybus -- Corey Hawkins -- (Straight Outta Compton, The Man in my Basement, 6 Underground)
Circe -- Samantha Morton -- (Minority Report, 2073, The Walking Dead, The Whale)
Melantho -- Mia Goth -- (Pearl, X, Maxxxine, Frankenstein, Infinity Pool)
Melantheus -- Logan Marshall Green -- (Upgrade, The Invitation, Marshalls, Lou)
Mentor -- Ryan Hurst -- (Remember the Titans, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, Saving Private Ryan)

Honorable mention Travis Scott as a bard we see a pair of times in the movie. Obviously this is a massive cast -- and many of the above characters play very minor roles, but everyone above was notable to me leaving the theater.

Before getting into specifics -- there was a lot of discourse before the film was even released about the casting that I want to address. The reason it was the most disliked movie trailer in the history of YouTube was because people were up in arms about some casting choices. 1) Elliot Page's casting (because people, for no reason at all, thought he was playing Achilles), 2) Lupita Nyong'o's casting as Helen of Troy, and 3) the general casting of the film not being "Authentic," and the dialogue being Amercianized/Westernized rather than the exact words of the text. Hell, I was even a bit skeptical going in to be honest. But rather than writing off a movie before seeing it -- I saved judgement and trusted the best Director alive before I made assumptions -- and I'm glad I did.

1) Elliot Page was actually very well cast in my opinion. Without spoiling the role he plays in the story, it made a lot of sense to me why Page was chosen, and I thought he did a good job (especially in the scene later in the film). 2) Lupita Nyong'o was pretty damn good too -- and I understand exactly why she was chosen. This was never a concern of mine going in -- I knew she'd be great and didn't understand the outrage. The other thing that makes me laugh about people getting mad about these two castings is that they're in the movie for like 12 minutes total -- if a fraction of screentime for these two ruins a 3-hour movie to you, you're a racist/bigot/both.

And 3) Nolan didn't make this movie to replicate Homer's epic -- it's an adaptation of the story. He's not using exact lines of dialogue from the book, he's reinterpreting it for audiences the way he interpreted it. So using modernized dialogue and American accents from the cast isn't a slight to the history of the book -- it's a way to portray the story for modern audiences. Which I for one appreciate -- reading the book in High School wasn't fun to me, but watching the movie made me want to reread the book now as an adult.

Now that that's out of the way -- let's get into the rest of the cast performances.

Obviously the story of The Odyssey revolves around Odysseus -- and Matt Damon gave a career best performance in the role in my opinion. That's not to say there aren't other actors out there that could've done a great job as well -- but Odysseus is a complex character that makes a lot of bad decisions, is arrogant at times, wrongs those around him. But with Damon at the helm, he has a certain likeability that makes you never waver in rooting for him. His physicality was a major plus, the emotional beats connected, and I was fully bought in to him in the role in a way I didn't expect.

Tom Holland probably plays the 2nd most pivotal role in this movie -- and I've seen his performance trashed a bit on social media. That just tells me a lot of people that don't know ball are hitting the theaters for this film (which is good, but annoying online) because I thought he was great. He plays a difficult role as Telemachus (and his Britishness comes out at times through his American accent), but he's cast perfectly by Nolan, and I think he held his own.

The Queen herself Anne Hathaway as Odysseus' wife Penelope was also very good. Limited screen-time, but a pivotal role -- and Hathaway's gonna paint 99 mph fastballs on the corner whether you need 9 innings or 2 innings from her.

Robert Pattinson is one of my biggest standouts for his role as Antinous. It truly is the year of Pattinson, and he was one of my 3 favorite performances in this film as one of the villains. Watching him play this scumbag role was like watching Picasso paint. Many of the most memorable lines/line deliveries of the movie came from him (and the Twitter memes have already been incredible and the clips aren't even available in 4K yet).

My two favorite under-the-radar castings/performances were Leguizamo's Eumaeus and Himesh Patel's Eurylochus. Eumaeus is Odysseus' most trusted man back home in Ithaca -- Eurylochus is his most trusted man in his army. Similar aspects, but very different characters/performances, and they surprised me and excelled in their roles.

But the biggest surprise of the movie -- the only actor above I wasn't familiar with coming in -- was Samantha Morton as Circe. No spoilers for her role, but the side quest where Odysseus met Circe is one of the most memorable of the film. Morton was called in as a microwave scorer to get 20+ points in limited minutes, and did just that.

The Aura King himself on social media this week -- Agamemnon -- is an impossible presence to forget. The movie-shot of the year centered around him and was absolutely SICK. Shoutout Benny Safdie -- a person you'd never expect in your life to play this type of role -- crushing it in minor usage.

The two performances I wasn't very high on were Charlize Theron's Calypso, and Zendaya's Athena. And neither of them were bad by any means -- they just didn't have a ton to do, and didn't do anything too memorable/exicting with what they had. Same goes for Corey Hawkins/Mia Goth -- fine performances, but had almost nothing to do.

Lastly, my boy Jon Bernthal as Menelaus. Limited role, but is one of my favorite living actors in limited roles. Sicario, Wolf of Wall Street, Baby Driver, The Bear, Wind River -- this guy is the GOAT of minor roles in great projects, and I'll always enjoy seeing him on screen.

Why it Works

Epic Scale for an Epic Story

The most important aspect of filmmaking that was required to tell the story of The Odyssey was capturing the massive scale the story captures. There's no better filmmaker when it comes to scaling than Christopher Nolan. The filming of the movie spanned 6 countries -- and you can tell as you watch, whether we're on the boat approaching a new island on his journey, on the mountainsides of Ithaca, or on the beaches of Troy. Filming on location makes it feel big and real and immersive -- which is key to creating an epic.

Visually speaking, this is up to par with all of Nolan's movies -- which is to say it's a class above 99% of movies that come out nowadays. Part of that is him and his crew just being masterful filming -- from technique to staging to lighting. And part of it is his commitment to using practical effects rather than CGI effects. There are several sequences throughout the movie that you sit there and wonder, "How the hell do you film this without CGI?" Think about Oppenheimer -- he didn't use CGI for the atomic bomb testing, he recreated it with practical effects. That style is on full display throughout The Odyssey.

Scoring/Emotional Beats

Another staple standout of Nolan films to me is the score -- his movies always seem to deliver when it comes to the music and sound design. For his last 3 films -- Tenet, Oppenheimer, and now The Odyssey -- he's had Ludwig Goransson scoring them -- one of the best composers in the game. This 3-movie-run is an especially shining example of his prowess -- this movie being no exception. It's LOUD when you see it in a theater, it's intense, it builds beautifully at the right times, and has so many elite needle drops I'm still thinking about 4+ days later.

I also think this movie -- much more so than other Nolan films -- hits on more emotional beats. Especially in the latter act, there are a few times that come to mind that were real emotional moments that you don't normally see in his movies. I don't watch Inception or Tenet or Oppenheimer and see these big emotional payoff moments -- but you see a few more in The Odyssey, and they worked well for me.

Story Structure/Pacing

Going into a Nolan movie, you can always expect the visuals, score, and scale to be nearly perfect. One aspect of his films that can be hit or miss on how successful he is with it is the storytelling -- from dialogue to story structure. Your mileage may vary on projects like Tenet, Inception, Memento, The Prestige (all movies that I think are great for the record -- but are also told in very complex ways) -- but I think Oppenheimer and The Odyssey are recent examples of Nolan executing the story of his films at a high level.

I don't think that will be everyone's takeaway that watches The Odyssey -- because I can definitely see why people may not like the structure of this movie. It jumps around a ton in the timeline of the story -- there are lots of flashbacks -- and for a 3-hour movie, it's pretty frenetically-paced. But to me, I thought it worked incredibly well. The trademark Nolan callbacks are evident throughout the film because of this structure -- which I think pays off in a major way, multiple times, in the final act. Which is another big reason that I think the ending of this film is so successful -- if it’s not my favorite ending in any Nolan movie (which it might be), it’s the most satisfying ending for sure.

Veers from the Epic -- But not too Far

My last positive takeaway is probably the most divisive depending how loyal you are to the original text of Odyssey by Homer. I've seen a lot of people on social media talking about how the movie isn't true to the events of the book -- and how X story was different in the book, and how Y story was different in this way, and blah blah blah. "Oh well the Cyclops story went this way in the book -- Nolan didn't do it exactly that way, so it’s bad."

I didn't read the book as closely as I should've in High School -- and I didn't remember the specifics going in, but had the broad overview. But since watching it, I've read up on a lot of the book passages and context of each storyline and how it compares to the movie. And it's true -- each island Odysseus and crew wash up on isn't told identically to how it's told in the book.

AND THAT IS A GOOD THING.

I won't delve into specifics, but he makes each encounter on Odysseus' journey compelling, exhilarating, and different from each other. The amount he strays from the source material varies -- but he captures the necessary theme and tone of each encounter very well. I never read a tweet about someone explaining how an event goes down in the book compared to how Nolan portrayed it in the movie and thought to myself, "Huh, that would've been way better than what the movie did." The book is fucking WEIRD people. And shit takes a long time in the book. Shit gets weird in the movie too -- don't get me wrong -- but I think the creative liberties Nolan took were not only good choices, but necessary ones.

Conclusion

I've already rambled for a long time about this movie, so in conclusion I'll keep it brief -- this movie was a fucking blast to watch in theaters. Is it a perfect movie? No. But it's an absolutely epic story, with dynamite performances from a dynamite cast, is visually gorgeous to watch, blends genres from drama to action to horror, and tells arguably the most famous story in the history of literature in a modern, cinematic way.

Can't recommend it enough -- go see it on the biggest movie screen you can (I'd hop on my soapbox on why it pisses me off there aren't enough IMAX screens across the country -- and also why I think it's elitist for directors to film things specifically for IMAX when 1% of the population has access to seeing it that way -- but that'll have to be saved for another day). The Odyssey will go down as the cinematic event of the year -- don't catch up on it when it releases to streaming, or you'll never understand what makes it so special.