THE ODYSSEY. Good movie. Christopher Nolan (executive producer: ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE) gives us his take on the ancient poem, as filtered through his heavy duty filmatism, shot on IMAX film, with some of his beloved non-linear structure, a ridiculously stacked cast and a weird Ludwig Göransson (THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN) score. It’s classic Nolan material but with the welcome addition of some monsters and horror, because it’s set in “a time of apparent magic.”
Nolan has joined the category of Spielberg and Eastwood, where I’ll see anything he makes and know I’ll probly like it even if it’s something I wouldn’t otherwise be interested in. Even if it seems like homework. Obviously THE ODYSSEY sounds like more of a popcorn movie than DUNKIRK or OPPENHEIMER, but I sure do feel like I’m supposed to already have opinions about Homer and epic poems. By the time I saw the movie the discourse revolved around a lengthy takedown in the London Review of Books by classicist Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation Nolan cites as an influence. But even regular movie critics seem to be full of thoughts about The Odyssey and The Iliad and what not.
This is all valuable, but I must say up front that I have none of that background. Instead I come to THE ODYSSEY as someone who actually liked the remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS and paid to see such Fantasy Sword Dude movies as KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, BEOWULF (in IMAX 3D), CONAN THE BARBARIAN 2011, HERCULES 2014, WARCRAFT, GODS OF EGYPT, and IN THE LOST LANDS, as well as Elevated Fantasy Sword Dude movies THE GREEN KNIGHT and THE NORTHMAN. And I enjoyed most of those. Not to brag.
Nolan’s Batman past and A+-lister production values can’t help but radiate summer blockbuster energy, even if his intentions lean closer to those last two on my list. He scratches some of that sword and sorcery itch while giving us a little more. It has more coherent things to say about the world than most of his movies, but thankfully it never feels like it’s saying, “Gather ‘round, I have some things to say about the world.”
It’s the most all-star cast since… well, OPPENHEIMER. (There hasn’t been an EXPENDABLES in a while.) It would be easier to just list the actors who aren’t in it: Mads, Joel Edgerton, Eric Bana, that’s about it. Snoop Dogg. Otherwise it’s all of ‘em. Everybody from John Leguizamo to Travis Scott to Mia Goth to Corey Hawkins to Logan Marshall-Green to James Remar (to name just some of the ones I don’t remember seeing in the trailers).
Matt Damon (TITAN A.E., SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON, HAPPY FEET TWO) stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. But the movie starts at his castle after he’s been gone for 20 years, so we only hear people glorifying him in psalm to his son Telemachus (Tom Holland, LOCKE). This guy doesn’t even remember his dad, but swears he’s coming back soon, and loves hearing endless stories about how fucking awesome he was, how he had this incredible bow and arrow trick, and nobody else could even string the bow. And he won the Trojan War with that horse gimmick, and all that. What a man. What a hero. What a legend.
And what a deadbeat? His old palace is a sad scene. The son dwelling on a past he doesn’t even know, his poor mom Penelope (Anne Hathaway, HOODWINKED!) still hurting, acting crazy, perpetually stalling so she doesn’t have to choose one of the young whippersnappers trying to get in her pants/his throne, providing bottomless food and drink and shelter to a mob of rowdy suitors, especially Antinous (Robert Pattinson, COSMOPOLIS). He’s a comically sniveling character, which is important because he’s obviously right that it’s pathetic for Telemachus to be so obsessed with a guy he’s never met. Get some hobbies, kid. Before Antinous is a confirmed bastard it seems like this could be an Iceman-in-TOP-GUN type move where he’s correct but acts like such a dick you’re tricked into thinking you disagree with him.
The thing about Odysseus, he left for the Trojan War, which was long and difficult, but won like ten years ago. Before the journey home his group split from Agamemnon (Benny Safdie, LICORICE PIZZA), a fancy lad with the fuckin Lamborghini Countache of armor – smooth, black, helmet looking like a Batman mask on the front, mohawk plume on the top, gold spinal column on the back. That guy didn’t make it back either. But some of them did, with bits of information. But without knowing for sure it’s easy to assume he either got squooshed by a giant or found a nice little place to settle in and start over.
Telemachus wants to find him, so he sneaks off with his trainer Mentor (Ryan Hurst, THE POSTMAN) and guidance from his father’s loyal swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo, SPAWN). He meets with the king of Sparta, Menelaus (Jon Bernthal, THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD) and his scarred wife Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o, NON-STOP), but they don’t know what happened to Odysseus either.
I do! He’s alive on an island with new lady friend Calypso (Charlize Theron, THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR) until he remembers “oh shit, I forgot to go home!” In mythology he’s been enchanted by a nymph and has to escape, but as presented in the movie he seems like a fuckin fool to give up a mellow life eating flowers on the beach with Charlize Theron. Seems way better than that dreary palace. But he wants to be with Penelope and he also has a pretty fuckin good revenge plan. If you seek revenge in real life you should dig two graves, but if you do it in a movie or epic poem I will add two stars to its rating.
In his memories Odysseus bravely leads his crew through a series of encounters, constantly questioned by his second-in-command Eurylochus (Himesh Patel, DON’T LOOK UP), who sometimes seems like the voice of reason, sometimes kind of an asshole who gets them in trouble with various gods. That’s if you believe in ‘em – the only one we see is Athena (Zendaya, SUPER BUDDIES), but only Odysseus ever sees her, so take from that what you will. They also believe they get attacked by Poseidon, but they never see Liam Neeson. Just waves and shit. Normal boat hazards. I’m skeptical about their interpretation. Obviously Nolan doesn’t show Zeus; having worked with the late Tommy “Tiny” Lister on THE DARK KNIGHT, he’d never recast.
On the other hand there’s a really cool, weird monster that snatches some of them. And a scene where they plug their ears with wax to avoid hearing the songs of some sirens they have to pass. I didn’t really understand why Odysseus insisted on hearing it, strapped to the mast for safety. Just showing off, I guess. I like that the minor character of Anchialus (Will Yun Lee, TORQUE) decides to listen too, gets an ear boner and swims happily toward the sirens. I don’t know if he had the best weekend of his life or got fucked to death on a pile of seals. Nolan couldn’t specify because it’s PG-13. even with an R-rating.
One of the best sections is definitely the one about the cyclops (Bill Irwin, POPEYE). They’re starving and see a sheep, but Odysseus says not to kill it, to follow it to the herd. They do, but it goes into a fucking cave. Do not follow a sheep into a cave, in my opinion. Then they get in there and find bags of cheese hanging from the wall. He tastes it, says it’s pretty good. Cave cheese! I wouldn’t do it.
Anyway, the cyclops comes home from work, an homage to the scene in CABIN BOY where Mike Starr as the giant catches Nathaniel Mayweather fuckin his wife, Calli. Most of this is obviously based on CABIN BOY (even some goofy shots with giant practical hands) though Nolan sadly did not feel ready to tackle the mythology of Chocki the half man/half shark. But the cyclops is a great creation with a (digitally?) mixed up face, designed more like an abstraction than a monster. And with humanizing touches like normal hairy legs and back acne. Late in their encounter they realize that he is an intelligent being with language, but Odysseus talks anybody out of trying to reason with him, and also turns into a fuckin yahoo and fires an unnecessary arrow at him after they escape. I do not support his actions, but I do support the scene.
The other episode that has stuck with me most is when Odysseus’s starving crew come across the cabin of Circe (Samantha Morton, JOHN CARTER) and she offers them a meal. She assumes they’re there to rape her, which they swear they aren’t, but she still takes revenge by using magic to make them voraciously slurp down piles of gut-noodles, and then with her hands molding their flesh into the shape of pigs. It’s some spectacularly imaginative FX and one of those moments where I’m not sure if the movie understands how much I’m gonna side with her but I’m gonna do it anyway. It doesn’t seem like they would’ve harmed her, but I got the idea from other scenes that they did their share of savagery in the war, as she assumed. So I can’t really get mad at her extreme methods of justice.
When the movie really started to surprise me was when we started to see the whole Trojan Horse incident from Odysseus’s perspective. I mean yes, we all know the story, what a clever ruse, and if I understand correctly in this version they made a beautiful horse sculpture out of their own shipwreck? Incredible work. But when it got to “we had to sit in that thing for days and people died and rotted at the bottom in our shit and piss” I thought “Oh wow, I never thought of it that way.” And we learn of Odysseus’s guilt over leaving a young soldier next to the horse, not knowing they were inside, as part of the plan. Poor Sinon (Elliot Page, WHIP IT) confronts him in Hades about the betrayal. And most mindblowing to me was the realization that jesus christ, what a fucked up thing to do! Yeah, what a clever trick they used to go in and massacre a people! A major theme is that Odysseus believes in “Zeus’s law” of always being a good host and a good guest, so he understands how deeply dishonorable it was to pretend to give a gift of peace as a way to wage war. I mean, I don’t generally think about the Trojan War, so maybe this old hat to others, but it’s not an angle I’d heard or thought of.
The aforementioned translator discourse was honestly a relief, because before the movie came out everybody was stuck responding to the idiotic grievances of the usual culture war dumbfucks, figureheaded by the actual richest man in the world, an apartheid-raised bigot who bought Twitter to turn it into a broken neo-nazi chat room and anti-immigrant riot starter. As usual he was apoplectic that there are some actors in the movie who are (gasp, puke, piss, sob, jerk it) not white. That’s very upsetting to gutter racist scum who believe that movies about ancient history aren’t “accurate” if they don’t use the Hollywood shorthand of white people speaking English in English accents.
The real flashpoint is Lupita Nyong’o as “most beautiful woman in the world” Helen Troy. If you don’t see how Lupita Nyong’o fits that bill that’s on you, buddy! That’s a you problem. After seeing the movie, of course, I recognize that the real issue is giving such a brilliant actress such a small role without much to work with. (I could say the same of Mia Goth [A CURE FOR WELLNESS], though there’s a moment where she gets to go 60% Goth. Lupita gets one too, when she stabs her husband. Spoiler.)
Anyway, according to the celebrity bigots (both the true believers and the grifters), the casting of THE ODYSSEY is an attack on western values or some shit. Musk promised to use A.I. to create his own “accurate” movie of the poem, and for once I wish he actually had follow through on these kinds of threats, because it would be really funny for his suck ups to force themselves to sit through right wing grievance slop and convince themselves they like it better than a Christopher Nolan movie.
Ironically, though, I think the international society of absolute dumbfucks were kinda right to be offended by THE ODYSSEY. Most of them are too bad at watching movies to know it, but it genuinely is an attack on their chauvinistic belief system. Prince Apartheid was hurtt to know there’s a Black woman in a movie, but he probly had no idea it would also dismantle his anti-immigrant hatred. It presents “hospitality” as a religious requirement of Zeus-worshippers, which also happens to align with how Christians are supposed to treat immigrants and the poor. It’s true in the movie as well as in our society that many dumb assholes flagrantly violate the teachings of their loudly professed religions, and meanwhile many of us non-believers actually do care about that shit, because we have morals.
This is a movie about people worried that “sea people” will invade their lands while they’re invading other people’s lands from the sea. Nolan’s aging Odysseus recognizes that. He has the legendary feats and hubristic failures of all mythical heroes, but also enough self reflection to have regrets and changes of heart. And going through this journey with him makes him a little stronger when he becomes an action hero at the end, enacting a revenge plan with the showmanship and trickery of the dark knight (but the extremism of Bane). I doubt the ending’s similarities to THE DARK KNIGHT RISES are an accident.
If I had to choose one Fantasy Sword Dude type movie that balances pulpiness with serious-mindedness while simultaneously reveling in and critiquing the avenging warrior mentality of its hero, I would probly have to go with THE NORTHMAN. I just love its raw barbarianism presented at face value and trusting the viewer to make their own judgments. That speaks to me artistically. But fuck it, I want both movies. I’m taking both. THE ODYSSEY is a fun time to watch and then to chew on in your mind. Unlike Odysseus, I’m glad I took the journey.
p.s. Seattle’s true IMAX theater was recently bought by the Space Needle owners, and they only use it to show a documentary about Dale Chihuly to bored tourists. A war crime on the level of the Trojan Horse fiasco. But I was at least able to see THE ODYSSEY in 70mm, which was pretty cool.
August 5th, 2026 at 5:06 pm
Excellent “No Holds Barred” reference!