The Odyssey Review: Christopher Nolan Meets Homer's Epic With One of His Own
The muses worked wonders on this one
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Like the citizens of Ithaca, it feels like we've been waiting years for Christopher Nolan to finally unleash his adaptation of Homer's epic poem. Hollywood has always appreciated a good sword and sandals story, going back to the early days of Hollywood itself, and it often feels like the likes of Cecil B. DeMille are watching over Nolan shoulders as he uses brings all his technical know-how to this movie. So, is The Odyssey the masterpiece some have touted it to be? No.
Like Odysseus himself there are narrative flaws that keep the movie from being perfect. It touches on the same themes Nolan's been examining for years now. Coupled with narrative decisions involving contemporary language and accents, there are times where one is thrust out of the grandiosity on-display. But it's still a massive feat of a movie, one of that reminds viewers why the biggest screen is the best.
The city of Ithaca lives without a King, over a decade since its ruler, Odysseus (Matt Damon) left to fight in the Trojan War. His son Telemachus (Tom Holland) hopes he'll come back, and spare his mother Penelope (Anne Hathaway) from marrying one of the dozen suitors that invade their home nightly. Odysseus himself, alive but unaware of who he is, recounts the story of where he is now in the hopes that both father and son will be reunited.
Strip away the Cyclops and men being turned into pigs and The Odyssey is another Nolan-directed story of guilt over personal failures. Specifically, the guilt that comes from failing as a father or husband. The movie opens with Ithaca laid fallow after eight years without Odysseus. Cruelty runs rampant, with the suitors taking a sick pleasure in hurting old people, the poor, even dogs. There's few who remember Odysseus, not even his own son. From this launchpad the movie engages in a series of flashbacks, itself a unique play on the poem's oral history tradition. Telemachus goes in search of his father, and along the way culls together pieces of who the man was through others, particularly Spartan King Menelaus (Jon Bernthal).
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The narratives switch between Telemachus and Odysseus, himself stranded on an island with the mysterious Calypso (Charlize Theron) with no memory of who he is or how he got here. This allows him the opportunity to gather together the memories inside his head of storming the gates of Troy. Where Telemachus gives us the story of the man/father, illustrating Odysseus's humanity, Odysseus's perception of himself is one of warrior, leader and soldier. This is where the majority of the action beats come from throughout the movie's near three-hour runtime.
And those action sequences are utterly breathtaking! Hoyte van Hoytema's camera has a determined confidence in capturing everything, and seeing this on 70mm IMAX (or IMAX solo) is fantastic. The sequence in the cave with the Cyclops is especially haunting. The men, huddled in the dark with just stray images of the Cyclops hands. The sheer size of the creature is astounding, yet there's an unsettling contrast in watching him casually chew a man's head off. This happens as well during the Circe (Samantha Morton) sequence where the horror comes from watching the men, a mix of terror and hunger in their eyes, stuffing/choking on food. It looks like the film is running backwards almost. It's wondrous to watch.
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The truly best sequence, though, involves the Trojan horse entering Troy. On a massive screen the audience feels the weight of the horse, being pulled by the citizens. A later sequence takes us inside the horse, where the men are piled onto each other like firewood. The confinement, the heat, and the smell can be felt on-screen. The actual Troy fight sequence is a masterful composition of editing and music, with the sound of banging drums reflecting the audience's heartbeat.
These trials often see Odysseus lose men, and through these moments Damon presents the character as a man conflicted. Does he want to go home or keep fighting? Does he want to save his men or save himself? How much of what he says is a smokescreen to make himself look/feel better? Is anything he says even true or is this a perception of himself? Like Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer, this is a story about personal legacy, and how one man defines who he is on a global scale. And, like previous Nolan features, Odysseus worries about how his wife and son feel about him, whether they remember him or if he's ruined their lives.
This is also, akin to Masters of the Universe and Disclosure Day, and a few other features of late, a story about the need for empathy in the face of rising cruelty. Characters routinely bring up "Zeus's Law," reiterating that everyone should be kind to strangers unless they are gods in disguise. By the end of the movie, as Odysseus wonders whether civilization will rise again, there's a poignance to it all that hits differently had this been made five years ago.
Damon is certainly a beast in this movie, whether he's destroying a cadre of large knights or trying to outfox Morten's Circe. Damon's portrayal is one that is methodical, even when it looks like Odysseus's decisions come from madness or selfishness. He is the standout because his performance feels the most consistent. Nolan's decision to utilize contemporary language is fine – other directors have been doing that for decades – but some actors have a better hang on making the words feel of that time than others.
The sheer amount of actors in the movie means there's little time to latch onto anyone not directly related to Odysseus, though Hamish Patel and Samantha Morton are able to rise above the herd. Morton, especially, has such a delicious creepiness to her performance as Circe. Bernthal and Lupita Nyong'o are fun to watch but there's not nearly enough time or personality given to them. The same can be said for Theron's Calypso, who spends her screen time staring at Damon's Odysseus and urging him to talk.
Holland's Telemachus is the anchor for the Ithaca chapters. His sense of awe listening to Menelaus tell the story of Odysseus is great work, but Holland does come off as the weakest link. He's a boy trying hard to be a leader, but the dialogue for him feels particularly naive. The third act fight scene pretty much sees him screaming "dad" as weapons are being hurled. Interestingly, watching him kept bringing up comparisons to Paul Mescal's performance in Gladiator 2 (a movie this movie does better) and where Mescal was too cool and devoid of personality, Holland is warm and genuine, though still devoid of personality.
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Hathaway feels similarly restrained, outside one of brilliant speech toward the end where she gets to talk about the patriarchy. The MVP of these scenes is Robert Pattinson's Antinous, an Ithaca suitor who peddles a story about being spared from going to Troy. That story gets retold by Antinous several times and Pattinson's delivery is always different, becoming more comical as he keeps bringing it up. Pattinson harnesses all the jealousy and cruelty of the character in a marvelous way.
The third act fight sequence is also a dazzling display of technical know-how, vacillating between two different locations with weapons raining down. It's pure '80s-level action goodness that it almost makes up for how bloodless the movie is. That becomes particularly noticeable once the soldiers reach the massive giants. For a movie filled to bursting with people being eaten, throats slashed, and an R-rating....no one's bleeding here.
The Odyssey is easily the biggest spectacle you'll see on-screen all year. When it's Damon and his men fighting all manner of battles it's utterly thrilling. The other actors just generally try to stay in his orbit. Nolan's usual flaws are still on display, particularly with his bland female characters. Regardless, a highly entertaining piece of popcorn cinema.
Grade: B
The Odyssey is in theaters Friday.
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