‘The Odyssey’ review: Christopher Nolan makes a high-profile snooze-time spectacle of an episodic journey led by a depressed Matt Damon

Christopher Nolan’s emotional love affair with the premium large format moviegoing experience reaches its peak Odysseya massive project that marks the first film shot entirely using IMAX film cameras. The result is a meditative action film that’s both massive and intimate, though its flow is hampered by the inherently episodic nature of the non-linear source material and some questionable casting choices. However, audiences hungry for the kind of powerful star spectacle now largely confined to science fiction and comic books should turn to this bold retelling of Homer’s epic poem.

It is ironic, given the text’s fundamental influence on modern Western storytelling, that there has never been an undisputedly great screen version of Homer’s narrative. Odysseyalthough Nolan, who also penned the film adaptation, comes closer for some. The poem built a model for the hero’s journey, shaping literature’s approach to character, adventure, and conflict in a story that includes humans, gods, monsters, history, myths, tests, and triumphs.

But it is less surprising when you consider the beginning of Homer’s disjointed structure In precision methods Then we fold in flashbacks while piecing together isolated encounters over 10 years, like stories within a story.

Then there is the novel’s protagonist, Odysseus – played intensely by Matt Damon here – whose inner transformation, from arrogant warrior to man humbled by trauma and loss, is as close to a continuous plot as it gets in the film. It is difficult to effectively depict a person piecing together fragments of memory on a gradual path toward moral, spiritual, and existential awakening.

Even more difficult is that much of this process takes place in a dream-like mist on the shore of an island, where the nymph Calypso (a distractingly contemporary Charlize Theron) keeps Odysseus as her lover, feeding him lotus petals to ease the pain in his body and prevent him from remembering the loyal men he has lost along the way—even if ostensibly to spare him this psychological torture. These tedious interludes stop the narrative in its tracks, recalling Sean Penn’s purgatory wanderings in Malick’s novel. Tree of life.

When the film’s engines are in gear, the filmmaking is robust, freely incorporating elements from Homer’s earlier epic, Iliad. Accessible even when the plot demands untangling, the action chronicles Odysseus’s 10-year journey home to his kingdom, traveling across the Mediterranean to the Greek island of Ithaca, after another decade of fighting in the Trojan War for Agamemnon (Penny Safdie), king of Mycenae.

In his fifth consecutive collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan begins from the stunning image of the massive Trojan Horse half-buried in the sand on the beach – like the Statue of Liberty at the end of the original film. Planet of the Apes. The ensuing siege, when the Trojan soldiers drag the horse inside the city gates with Odysseus and his men hidden inside awaiting the attack, is the heart of what haunts the main character. We call it ancient Greek PTSD.

Back in Ithaca, Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is plagued by a house full of independent suitors, the most conniving of whom are Antinous (Robert Pattinson) and Polybus (Corey Hawkins). They become increasingly impatient with her delay in admitting that Odysseus must die after 20 years of absence and will not return. The royal couple’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), is ready to claim the throne, and while Antinous assures Penelope that he will respect the line of succession if she agrees to marry him, Telemachus is smart enough to know that he has a target on his back.

Guided by the goddess Athena (Zendaya), who informs Telemachus that his father is alive and trapped on an island, he sets out to find evidence. The first sign of this comes through an encounter with Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), king of Sparta, whose anger over the kidnapping (or escape?) of his wife, the legendary beauty Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), is at the root of the allied Greek army’s war against Troy.

Nyong’o also plays Clytemnestra, the twin sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon, but these scenes feel superficial, and this isn’t the only time the dense script collapses under the weight of everything Nolan tries to cram into it.

One problem is that the writer-director never finds much of a balance between the parallel journeys of Odysseus and Telemachus, which makes the film feel structurally clumsy. What doesn’t help is that Holland, though always an attractive screen presence, is miscast in the role. Like Pattinson, the British actor plays his character with an American accent. But he comes across as Peter Parker wearing a jacket, sapping the gravitas from Telemachus’ path to maturity.

Classicists may complain that the main events of Odysseus’s journey home are skipped or given such a hasty treatment that carries no weight. Blink and you might miss Scylla, the six-headed sea monster that Odysseus and his men dodge while steering their longboat around the whirlpool. And audiences who remember well their high school English studies will likely have a pretty good idea of ​​what happens when man-eating giants called Laestrygonians appear on the rampage.

On the other hand, there are several main episodes that lead to stress. The dramatic escape of Odysseus and his men from the cave dwelling of the giant sheepherder Polyphemus (performer Bill Irwin, Somewhere in There) is terrifying, and has consequences for the journey since the angry giant is the son of the vengeful sea god Poseidon. There is an eerie poetry in the crew’s fear as they pass the island inhabited by sirens whose songs lure sailors to death on the rocks, and where Odysseus suffers torment while tied to the mast for resisting their call.

The standout interlude is the soldiers’ visit to the island area of ​​Circe, a treacherous witch played with deceptive calm and a misleading air of distraction by a chilling Samantha Morton. Starving for provisions, the men make a tentative foray into Circe’s home, where she feeds them soup that turns them into voracious animals. When they fail to return to the boat, Odysseus intervenes, drawing on the cunning of his years in battle to convince Circe to reverse her dark magic.

The climax that ties together the nearly 3-hour film comes when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, disguised as a beggar to test Penelope’s love and get rid of Antinous and the others who want him dead. Van Hoytema’s cameras seem to be everywhere at once as Odysseus launches into deep conflict, aided only by Telemachus. It’s exactly the kind of large-scale set pieces that Nolan excels at: high-stakes clashes in a confined space, prompted by a test conducted by Penelope, whose keen intelligence makes her a match for her husband.

Here too the film’s themes finally gain strength – about the sobering disillusionment that follows war; The fragility of heroism; Challenge the gods. Uncertainty about returning home after a long absence. The most resonant theme is conscience, as Odysseus weighs his accomplishments against his sacrifices, from the drowning of his men to the slaughtered Trojans, betrayed by a gift to the gods in violation of all that is considered sacred. One death in particular, that of his young cousin Sinon (Elliot Page), troubles him more than anything else.

Nolan’s intentions are clear, as the human instinct for war dates back to the Bronze Age but he makes it relevant to the present day by eschewing classical rhetoric and leaning into the rhythms of modern conversation. However, she winced at outdated language, such as Penelope saying to her rowdy suitors, “I have heard your party,” or Telemachus referring to his father as “ my dad”.

while Odyssey Unequal, not equal to the consistency and intellectual complexity Oppenheimerthey were elevated by the amazingly charismatic ensemble. (I refuse to get into the boring online debate about Nolan’s unorthodox casting choices; since no one here is Greek or Turkish, complaining about an actor or two being dismissed as “DEI employees” is ridiculous.)

Damon is great, rarely going into dark places if explored in his previous roles; Hathaway is a model of steely strength masking weakness. Pattinson chews up his character’s villainy with gusto, and Antinous emerges as a cowardly conniver, loyal only to himself.

Even actors with limited scope roles, such as Zendaya, Nyong’o, Hawkins and Mia Goth as the devious maid Penelope, register a lively presence. Perhaps the best of the supporting players, besides Morton, are Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Odysseus’s second-in-command, steadfast until he loses faith in the captain’s recklessness; and John Leguizamo, who plays Eumaeus, the servant and friend of Odysseus, a swineherd whose powers of observation are not hindered by his blindness.

The work on the craft side is not surprisingly top notch. Van Hoytema fills the giant frame with majestic images captured in evocative international locations, large and powerful in scale. The sequences of long boats at sea are stunning, even more so during a severe storm. While Nolan often wrangles what feels like a cast of thousands, the look strays away from the Old Hollywood vision of the sword-and-sandal epic, creating something equal parts majestic and eerie, as befits a story filled with fantastical elements.

Pushing for an in-camera spectacle around digital fakery wherever possible pays off in terms of dropping the audience mid-action – especially in the intricately choreographed final battle in Ithaca.

Production designer Ruth De Jong’s grand sets (Troy is particularly impressive) and Ellen Mirojnick’s costumes, drawn from history and myth, add to the immersive sense of storytelling. Ludwig Göransson’s shape-shifting music fuels a turbulent soundscape, particularly in the rhythmic passages when it intersects with the beating of war drums, a notion of contemporary life just as it was more than 30 centuries ago.