Christopher Nolan doesn’t believe in half measures.
The industry’s most bankable director swings for any fence he can find. That means for every creative misstep in his films, there’s a sequence that will blind you with greatness.
It’s the best way to describe “The Odyssey,” Nolan’s retelling of Homer’s epic poem. It’s masterful and maddening, a triumph that occasionally can’t get out of its own way.
It’s a must-see experience, in a theater, of course. And, with a few tweaks, it might have lived up to every molecule of the pre-release hype.
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the Greek leader aching to return to his family and homeland. He spearheaded the military attack on Troy, a battle won courtesy of an overstuffed Trojan Horse.
He’s had enough war and death, but the journey home may be his most perilous assignment.
His loyal wife (Anne Hathaway) is considering any number of suitors to replace Odysseus in his absence, but she clings to hope that he’ll come back unharmed. Young Telemachus (Tom Holland, miscast) also pines for a father he barely knew.
Other souls hope he’ll stay gone forever, including Antinous (Robert Pattinson), a soldier with murky allegiances.
The massive cast includes Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, but her modest screen time belies the pre-release frenzy surrounding her casting. Elliot Page, another casting news kerfuffle, falls into a similar bucket, but the screenplay plays up the character’s bravery in ways that confirm some critics’ fears.
It’s a distraction. The miscue is also a microscopic part of a three-hour production. It should be processed as such.
Nolan’s films often demand multiple viewings to unlock their narrative tangles. “The Odyssey” may deserve that treatment for spectacle alone, but even with his penchant for nonlinear plots, this tale is deceptively simple.
So, too, are the set pieces, which feel as raw and magnificent as anything we’ve seen over the past few years. A fascinating encounter with a hungry cyclops rushes to mind.
Stunning. Jaw-dropping. Add your favorite superlative here, and it’ll fit like a glove.
Could anyone, be it Spielberg, Tarantino or Scott, render what we see with such spectacle? It’s not online activism to shout, “not a chance.”
Yet flaws abound, and they magnify during a chaotic third act. A film like “The Odyssey” shouldn’t ape a “John Wick” installment in its visceral overkill, yet one battle does just that.
And a strategy laid out by a key character feels as uninspired as it is absurd. That third-act wrinkle upends the film’s otherwise solid pacing.
So do the presence of supporting players (Zendaya, Charlize Theron), who should impact the story but don’t. John Leguizamo is somewhat better as a blind man with strong ties to Odysseus. He, too, suffers from a previous plot device that can’t be shared here.
And, yes, it all matters. The greatest directors of our age could use a neutral soul to advise them against such obvious miscues.
Nolan is working on a different level than every other filmmaker today. His grasp of technology, his eagerness to wow with every shot, is unrivaled. Some of his recent projects have reflected his cool, almost detached approach to character, but Damon’s performance flicks away such concerns.
The actor has never been so invested in a character’s humanity. The film’s anti-war bona fides will grab plenty of attention, but it’s only a small part of his performance.
This is the film that may make us stop taking Damon for granted.
The Nolan factor: From Batman to Oppenheimer, The Odyssey’s director’s greatest hits https://t.co/l7dSneMOi7
— Irish Independent (@Independent_ie) July 15, 2026
Nolan’s mastery has never been in doubt. So why are the film’s first few moments burdened by sound issues that make deciphering the dialogue a chore? Why tease out the film’s modern anachronisms with a rap-like bard (Travis Scott) and use current profanity to break the movie’s spell?
Geniuses like Tarantino, Cameron and Nolan need someone to rein in their self-destructive impulses. Yet we rarely see that partnership bloom.
At least, the evidence on screen suggests as much.
No matter. A flawed, frustrating epic from Nolan is better than two dozen generic features. Long may he noodle with perfection, even if he never quite gets there.
HiT or Miss: “The Odyssey” finds Christopher Nolan lunging for greatness, and succeeding more often than many of his peers.
Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway were very good.
I was distracted more from the uneven modern dialog than the casting choices. You want to imerse yourself into this alternative reality and those decisions break the spell.
Lupita Nyong’o was not that big a deal, but casting Elliot Page was an unforced error. I get why he did it, but it did not work.
No. Fake Toto. I will NOT look past the casting and I am black, because I know the REASON for the casting and you don’t seem to . Liberalism seeks to corrupt all that is good and decent and they want to start by “REWRITING HISTORY” a cue they are taking from MICHELLE OBAMA who uttered those ridiculous words in a speech , immediately after which the LYING 1619 Project was born.
Suddenly GOOGLE AI thought there were BLACK , AMERICAN INDIAN and FEMALE, FOUNDING FATHERS. Just like her husband started the liberal craze of teaching SEXUAL FILTH like HOMOSEXUALITY to KINDERGARTENERS by saying at the 2007-8 (?) Democrat Presidential debate when it was just Obama, Hillary and John Edwards that HE THOUGHT HOMOSEXUALITY SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN KINDERGARTEN. He actually was AGREEING with John Edwards who was asked at what age he thought that filth should be taught to children and John Edwards said “Kindergarten” THE CROWD GASPED and these are ALL godless democrats and even THEY gasped. The moderator thinking he had a controversy brewing raced over to Hillary and questioned her, “I AGREE WITH JOHN” the moderator runs to Obama looking to seize on the controversy and Obama said “I AGREE” and there was no more controversy and Democrats IN THE AFT AND UFT teachers unions TOOK THEIR MARCHING ORDERS and immediately began teaching filth to our children. Putting a BLACK WOMAN as Helen of Troy and a SICK GENDER CONFUSED WOMAN WHO THINKS SHE’S SOME KIND OF TITLESS MAN as ACHILLES one of the greatest WARRIORS in myth is neither an accident nor innocent.
But the problem is people like YOU who pretend to be Christians but can’t see Satan’s work ANYWHERE. Fake Christians will eventually tolerate themselves into HELL because you have no backbone and really don’t believe in Jesus.
Even so, Christian…I cannot WAIT to miss this movie! I would rather watch my grass grow or water boil or paint dry than give credence to a project that glorifies demonist transgenderism and DEI balderdash. Evil creeps in a little at a time and once we forgive the small increments it ends up palpable and entrenched. So…no.
and from what I heard about the ending, it is such a misunderstanding of the source material. the gods were not made about the trojan horse. in fact, Athena helped give Ulysses the idea in the first place. and the whole thing with Ellen Page being the “bravest soldier he ever knew” is so laughable. I know Lupita didnt read the Odyssey but now I wonder if Nolan did
I’ll pass. The shame is this is the kind of film I would be excited to see but there are some glaring reasons why I will pass.
1. I saw the trailer, modern language and slang in a period peive on ancient Greece, sorry no, that doesn’t work. Example: “My Dad will return” I understand this is a translation into English bjuut the translation should be, “My Father will return”
2. I refuse to support any project that seeks to shit all over my European culture! Helen of Troy was WHITE! She was the Queen of Sparta!
3. I also refuse to supprt any project that seeks to support the abomination that is trans ideology!
People who seek to profuce these projects should understand that if you do not appreaciate and understand the source material, then stay the hell away from it! Also if you want to inject “diversity” into your project then use material from those “diverse” cultures! Oh that’s right. they don’t exist!
insert adjectives: how about bloated? Everybody who’s read The Odyssey can visualize the zCycloos an Sibilla. Nolan could use an editor
The translation to “Dad” instead of “Father” shows how they don’t care.
” My daddy is coming home”
Who decides to write that into script of a classic movie?
‘The Odyssey’ Gets Unanimously Mocked for Race-Swapped & Trans Roles
According to legend, Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus, so why do they use an African girl?
This DEI Hollywood destroys everything.
Perhaps he needs someone to follow behind whispering ‘You are mortal’ imn his ear. Wait, that was a Roman thing. Never mind.
Interesting review. I find that I’m usually in agreement w/ Christian’s reviews, so this is all good to know.
I’ll probably, eventually, watch this movie….but I’m just too old to sit in a theater seat for 3 hrs any more.
I’ll just wait until I can see it on a streaming service sometime in the future….by that time, I’ll probably have forgotten all these crazy stories flying around currently….lol
“Look past the casting controversy to find an epic yarn worthy of the auteur”
See, but I can’t. The movie won’t let me. The studio won’t let me. The culture won’t let me. My eyes and my brain and what I know about why those casting choices were made, won’t let me.
Maybe in a decade, when, God willing, this woke attempt to culturally colonize the western oeuvre with modernist, progressive, anti-human flaming garbage is over, I can roll my eyes and laugh off a tiny, mutilated, mentally unwell woman pretending to be a Greek soldier in an era of muscle-powered weapons. Maybe I won’t care then about a Black woman — a beautiful, talented, intelligent Black woman — who was encouraged to do an ugly thing and get her bag by taking a role she herself would scream bloody murder about if the shoe was on the other foot.
But not today. Today, I have to care, and you should too. If you think movies need to be reviewed in a vacuum, that may be all well and good to read a decade in the future, but what good are you as a reviewer now, today? Do you think we care more about Damon’s grizzled turn or Leguizamo’s acting chops, than we do about decency, honesty, and the grand hypocrisy of holier-than-thou leftists, taking our money with one hand while slapping us with the other for past sins of “cultural appropriation”?
Sometimes you’ve got to stop trying to play the middle, Mr. Toto. Call it like it is, but call it *all* like it is. A movie isn’t just what you see on the screen, and I know you know that.
I can’t ignore a film’s quality … and I won’t demolish a movie if a microscopic part of the movie is woke or propaganda adjacent. I’ll call it out … and let the reader decide if it’s too much. I’ve also done more to call out Hollywood for its woke nonsense than arguably any other writer for the past 20 years.
Because you don’t understand the SATANIC BELIEFS of the titans who STARTED HOLLYWOOD. You have NO IDEA of the SATANIC FILTH that Hollywood is pushing right in your face RIGHT NOW. Here’s a long video called X-Factor Winner Reveals World’s Secret Religion, he lost his career over it. Everything in it is factual because it’s video evidence of what they are doing.
It’s as long as it is because he has to first TEACH YOU what the symbols they use EVEN ARE so blind are most of us, then he has to show these thing being used throughout the decades. Examine the Hollywood membership in “The Church of Satan” , the evidence is all around you but you just care about a “film’s quality ” as if whatever message they’re pushing is IRRELEVANT. “The Birth of A Nation” was well made too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Eeo-82Eac8
Pretty good take there. Though I disagree with you about Lupita. She’s very mid looking at best. I know beauty is subjective, but I’d be willing to bet you’d find more people than not that would also rate her as “mid.” She’s also overrated as an actor. She’s certainly better than that plank of wood Zendaya, but overall, she’s kinda “meh” as an actress. Not much range in her. As to her intelligence? Well, someone that studied art, culture and history at an Ivy League school claiming to not even know The Odyssey existed until she was offered the part makes me question just how smart she is. Or she could just be lying to try and crap on Homer like she seems to like to do in the various press interviews she’s been doing ahead of the movie. Acting like she’s somehow better than the man that wrote an epic that’s still around thousands of years after his death because she’s a feminist also makes me question her intelligence.
.
Also, for someone that’s railing so hard against “woke” cultural things, I see that you’re capitalizing black when referencing a black person. You know that was some woke BS started after Saint Fentanyl Floyd killed himself by overdosing, right? The AP “style guide” adopted it as a way to metaphorically fellate BLM and their supporters, to show they were “down with the struggle.” The fact that they will capitalize it when saying “black man” but not capitalize white when saying “white man” tells you everything you need to know about it being “woke” and also anti-white. I don’t really care if they capitalize it or not, just that if they’re going to capitalize black in that context, they should GD well do it to white in the same context as well. Otherwise it’s woke racist nonsense.
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By the way, please don’t take that as me trying to insult you or crap on what you said there. I agree with you on every fundamental point you made. The powers that be in Hollywood (and Nolan is part of that structure) are reveling in belittling and taking swipes at western culture all the time. They should be called out on it in every instance that they do so, whether or not the movie or show they make is “well crafted” or not.
Rex nails it. And, yes. Toto has done more to call out woke nonsense than anyone (which is why I’ve become a fan of the page).
But I diverge from Toto in this way: It’s not “microscopic” in today’s environment. It’s just a return to “embedded messaging.” That’s not an improvement. That’s a strategic retreat due to guys like Toto calling out the attempted culture control. Hollywoke hasn’t eliminated, they’ve simply moved from “overt-in-your-face” back to “hidden and sneaky.” Problem is, we recognize it and refuse to deny what our eyes can now plainly see. The Trojan Horse metaphor can’t be more spot on.
“The most difficult thing to show a man is something right in front of him that he refuses to see.”
tomato
to mah toe
hmm, I think I will just watch Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia again. Problem solved. Long live physical media.
His problem is IMAX. He is obsessed with it. They cut so much material to keep it under 3 hours because the IMAX system cant handle anything over 3 hours
Matt Damon!
Matt Damon!
Matt Damon!