The Odyssey: A Spoiler-Free Review – Christopher Nolan – Movie Review

The Odyssey is the latest Christopher Nolan movie, this time adapting the story of the Odyssey. We follow Odysseus, who is on a several-year journey to get back home, all while back home, his son, Telemachus, played by Tom Holland, is doing his best to keep the throne available for his father’s return. And that’s all, pretty much, I can give you guys. This will be a spoiler-free review. The Odyssey is here!

Oh, what a grand and wonderful time it is whenever we get a new Christopher Nolan movie, but uh, we gotta admit, the tides were shifting, and the waters were crazy this time around.

From the moment Christopher Nolan announced his next project, The Odyssey, I was immediately hyped and excited. I’m not much of a schoolboy, as you can tell, but dang if in literature class I didn’t immediately lock in and pay attention when it came to Greek mythology. And also, just knowing how Christopher Nolan works, and he tries his hardest to ground the movies in some sort of reality, even if there are non-realistic things that happen in them, something like The Odyssey with gods, monsters, cyclopses, supernatural things, it made me all the more interested in what he could do with that. So it honestly should have been an entire hype train until then, and out of nowhere, the internet decided to just hate this movie.

It wasn’t all just grumpy people over a couple of casting choices. No, they were like nitpicking everything: the language, the dialogue, the costumes. I remember seeing complaints saying that the action scenes look like something out of a Marvel movie, and I’m like… when did, when did people just turn on Christopher Nolan? But whatever, right? As long as I enjoyed it, that’s all that matters. So, I went to the movie just hoping to have a great Christopher Nolan experience like I have in the past and, uh, sat down, was watching the movie… 20 minutes in, I genuinely thought to myself: “Okay, maybe those other people were right.” Until it continued on, and this is easily now one of my favourite Christopher Nolan movies. Yeah, I actually kind of want to start off with the negatives and things I were kind of iffy on with this movie before I go into the things that just completely won me over as the film continued on.

I actually do think there is a conversation to be had about Christopher Nolan just choosing to have regular, plain old English as part of the dialect for The Odyssey. At first, I found it kind of ridiculous that people were even complaining of that, but when film history has like trained us to expect British Shakespearean accents when watching a film that is set eons ago, you gotta admit Christopher Nolan wanting to go outside of the norm and just choose modern dialect as the main way of speaking for this movie is something that really does break the mold and… I didn’t care either way until I actually sat down and was watching the movie, and it took a bit of an adjustment. For the first like 10 minutes, just the way they were speaking, saying “daddy” or “dad”, or kind of just interacting the way I probably would with a friend that I was hanging out with, it was really like, “Ah, this is breaking my immersion just a bit.”

That, along with the beginning of the movie, is also trying to train the audience on how it’s going to tell its story. This movie is not told in a linear fashion, and that was honestly expected; that’d be a very boring way to just tell The Odyssey’s story. So I expected this, flashes from the future to the past, to this scene to that scene. It was kind of hard to find my footing in this. Another negative nitpick I have is the movie’s Rated R; honestly, it did not really need to be. There’s like maybe a handful, maybe two or three sequences where it does benefit from the Rated R, but most of the Rated R sequences, I think, classify as PG-13. There’s going to be a handful of people who watch this movie, and when you walk out, and you tell them, “You know that was Rated R,” they’re going to be like, “What?” Again, not that huge of a deal, but I mean, if you’re going Rated R, well, please go all the way with it.

And so it really was that where I think the first act of this film, if you can even call it that because it’s over a three-hour movie, so the first 20 minutes is, I don’t know, the first half of the first act, I thought, “Dang, I think this is going to end up being one of those movies that everyone around me is probably going to praise and love and I’m just going to go, didn’t connect with it.” And then things finally picked up once we got to a bunch of soldiers in a cave meeting a Cyclops, and it doesn’t let up from there, and the entire journey from the Cyclops sequence to the very ending of the movie, I was just front and centre locked in, so happy with what I was witnessing.

So where do I even begin with my positives on this? I think Christopher Nolan, again, found a way to put in his modern realistic take on things, while still being able to explore the supernatural and fantastical side of gods in a way that kept you immersed in the story and didn’t feel so out there. Yes, I would have loved to have seen, like, a giant Poseidon God, or a Zeus maybe with a giant bolt, but that’s not really the way Christopher Nolan works. Zeus is represented through thunder and lightning. Poseidon is represented through the waves in the ocean, and the grounding of fantastical elements, especially when it came to like the Cyclops, or another sequence where Odysseus is facing the ghosts of his fallen soldiers, taking that leap and doing something supernatural, but in a grounded fashion, only makes you that much more attached to the story, because he somehow found a way to make the unrealistic realistic.

Performances all around in this movie are amazing. I really can’t find a single bad performance. Matt Damon as the lead does exactly what he needs to and pulls off the role of Odysseus with flying colours. This is probably the strongest performance by Tom Holland where he really got to shine and show off some of his acting chops, even if his character of Telemachus pissed me off, not because of Tom Holland, probably more because it was frustrating watching him not be as great of a warrior as his father, but acting and performance wise, there are some really emotional things that they do because he misses his father and is wondering, is he alive and is he coming back, and there were emotional payoff scenes where Tom Holland’s eyes really sold it. Anne Hathaway is one of the stronger performances here, really showing her frustrations and broken heart with Odysseus not returning home. Probably my personal favourite performance is Robert Pattinson.

He plays Antinous, and if anybody in this cast is rocking the modern English dialect, it is Robert Pattinson. But he plays this almost snake-like character, just trying to weasel his way into power, and the more I got of him, the more I was just really enjoying what he was giving. Robert Pattinson is easily becoming one of the best in the industry. It’s crazy to see how far he’s come from the Twilight days. And hey, even just addressing some of the cast members that people were iffy on, if they were bad, I would have been 100% honest with you, but Elliot Page in this is not distracting at all in the role he has, and if anything, he gives a great performance in the very little screen time he has throughout this movie. And the same goes for Lupita Nyong’o. She serves the purpose of her role, and I really don’t see why there’s a need to fuss over that. Honestly, the casting choice I was most worried was going to be absolutely distracting was Travis Scott.

Nothing against Travis Scott, I like his music, but it just felt like, okay, that’s definitely a person that once I see them on screen, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to differentiate them as a Greek citizen or rapper Travis Scott. And again, Christopher Nolan knows how to use these casting choices in ways that they are suited for the role, and it wasn’t distracting.

But getting on to things that like really elevated this movie for me and had me geeking out in my chair is, yes, Christopher Nolan has done a couple of horror sequences, and I think there’s enough of it in The Odyssey to kind of give it a little horror tag. The Cyclops sequence in itself is lengthy, takes up a good part of the movie, and just all around, the scale of it, the way they use the Cyclops in the sequence, the struggle Odysseus and his men have with that Cyclops in the cave, I thought it was all handled beautifully. There are moments of terror, of horror, but it’s also so gripping in trying to figure out how these characters are getting out of this situation. And really, when people were hyping up the horror sequences, I thought that was the only one. There is another one, and it is probably my favourite scene of the entire movie. I don’t want to say too much, but it is the Circe scene involving pigs, and when I tell you, I could not have been happier; I had a combination of jaw wide open and smiling at the same time.

And for the most of the movie, a lot of people were silent, respectful, watching attentive, and that third act, there’s a lot of payoff moments, a lot of things that were set up in the beginning come back to the end, and all those moments had people clapping and cheering, which I think actually does not happen very often in a Christopher Nolan movie. Not because they’re not good, but just because audiences are more like, “Hey, we’re here to witness cinema, take your clapping back to the Marvel movie, buddy.” But it’s just such awesome punctuation moments that you feel like you have to stand up and go, “Ah, that was awesome.”

So clearly, I really enjoyed this, and I’m already getting the questions because I put my social media reaction out there: “Is it like the best Christopher Nolan movie?” No, I wouldn’t say this is the best or even my favourite of Christopher Nolan. I would put it in the category of his better films, but that is just the stacked filmography Christopher Nolan has. This wasn’t average in the least. A lot of the complaints and people wanting to target this movie, I think, are laughable once you actually see how everything plays out. Amazing performances, good emotional punches, not to mention the beauty of just the scale and scenery. Like, we really should appreciate this movie for having shot most of its stuff on location. I’m willing to bet it’s like 99% on location.

Because you forget what it looks like for an actor to be in a giant field, or have a beach behind them, when a lot of the time, cough, Moana movie, it’s so clearly green-screened in, imposed fake sunlight, fake background. And just a lot of the shots in this movie look gorgeous because there’s actual mountains behind them, there’s an actual giant ocean that they’re sailing across, and there’s not this green screen fuzz on the edges of people’s bodies killing the immersion you have. No, I tell you, it’s a bit of a rough start, took me about 20 minutes to actually get into things, but once the movie locks you in, you’re familiar with what’s going on, the journey you’re about to go through, I think you are hooked in until the credits roll.

So when it comes to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, I’m going to give Action: four stars. I still wish Christopher Nolan would be willing to hand off a lot of the action scenes to a different choreographer, maybe a lot of the complaints people had, like with the Dark Knight trilogy, I think, can still be found here. Not to say that the action is subpar, no, it’s still good, but there are those moments where you can tell it’s super zoomed in, a bit of a shaky cam. Like, it could have been more tightly choreographed, but because of the story and you feeling so attached to those characters, those action scenes do feel impactful.

Comedy in the movie, I’m gonna give it two stars. It’s not really a movie made to make you laugh throughout. There are sprinkling moments of humour and things that will make you giggle, but the movie is mainly taking itself very seriously, and that is the tone you’d rather have.

Drama in the movie, I’m gonna give it four stars. I think the movie really emotionally hooked me in. I completely forgot to talk about John Leguizamo’s character, but I mean he’s someone that I also thought was a standout performance in the sea of standout performances. But with the strong character work, I think there will be some people who will be shedding tears at the end. I was almost there but didn’t quite get there. Still, though, great adaptation of this story.

Suspense in the movie, I’m going to give it four stars. I really, with Ludwig’s score and the crazy final battle that happens in the third act, I am on the edge of my seat. And that was when I was already on the edge for the Cyclops scene, the Circe scene, and a lot of cool sequences throughout.

And horror in the movie, I’m going to throw it in there: three stars, again, for the Cyclops and the pig sequence, because those I thought were handled so well, and I hope Christopher Nolan someday makes a full-on horror movie, because he’s definitely got a creepy mind, and I’d like to see him explore that more.

When looking at the three C’s, I honestly do think this could go around well for all audiences, even casuals, if they’re willing to tough it out through that beginning part. But of course, being a Nolan film, I’m going to lean more critic-wise, because there are just so many filmmaking technical aspects to be appreciated with this film. So really, when it comes to The Odyssey, this is exactly the type of spectacle I hope to get immersed in when I go to the movies. Make me want to say, The Odyssey gets the 3C guarantee!

That’s Christopher Nolan for you, baby. He made a good movie. What a shocker. I think good is underselling it, to me this is great and excellent, but I’d love to hear from you guys, especially if you’re more of a picky historian and you didn’t like some of the modern grounded interpretations of this Greek mythology story, the way the story itself was structured, if anything you didn’t like, or anything that you thought could have been a little bit better, would love to hear thoughts down below.