'The Odyssey' Review: Christopher Nolan's Adaptation of the Classic Epic Is Much More Than a Star-Studded Blockbuster

Damon plays Odysseus with the burden of being a good man forced to make hard decisions for the well-being of his people, whether they be the citizens of his kingdom or the soldiers serving under him. He approaches the role with a kindness that’s key to making the character work. Yes, Odysseus is cunning and brave and strong and deadly, but Damon’s earnestness makes you care for him, especially when it becomes clear that he’s carrying an unspeakable trauma on his shoulders. It’s a well-written part, and Nolan pulls one of the best “tortured good guy” performances from Damon that he’s ever delivered on screen.

Hathaway is wonderful in her role; Penelope recognizes the cruel hand that fate has dealt her as a woman in power, while also balancing her need to protect her son in her husband’s absence. Sadness permeates out of every pore in her scenes, with Hathaway’s steely demeanor deftly conveying only slight bursts of vulnerability. Holland also plays Telemachus well, bringing the necessary amount of vigorous naivety to the character. While you’re rooting for him every time he enters this lion’s den of suitors, you also feel bad because you know he’s just going to get his ass kicked.

Pattinson deserves his flowers as Antinous, the sleazy suitor who plots to replace Odysseus on the throne. It’s no secret that Pattinson is at his best when he is playing weirdos, be they heroes or villains, simply because he gets to have fun in these roles. Antinous might not be his greatest performance even of this year, but he consistently delivers stellar work, and this is no exception.

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

The supporting cast knows the assignment and knows it well. Samantha Morton stands out as Circe, swapping vulnerability for cunning and cruelty with impressive subtlety in the film’s most visceral sequence. John Leguizamo is great as one of Odysseus’ loyal servants, Eumaeus. Elliot Page services his pivotal role with strength, and his brief scenes serve to mend many gaps across each of the different story threads. Lupita Nyong’o brings wit and intensity to another quick role that, too, is rooted in tragedy. Jon Bernthal gets to be Jon Bernthal. Everyone is so good, you might even forget that Benny Safdie was in this movie at all.

The decision to use American English accents and dialects (with a few exceptions) for the dialogue plays a crucial part in delivering these performances, as most of the actors, sans Holland, are able to speak naturally. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have British accents or speak English with Greek accents; what matters is creating a believable world, and it’s very easy to get lost in this one. The actors didn’t need to be bogged down by the historical accuracy of the dialect — they focused on telling an epic tale, and they succeeded.

It’s evident that Universal opened up their coffers for Nolan and co-producer Emma Thomas to recruit some of the most talented people in the business, many of whom are frequent collaborators. Holt van Hoytema returns as cinematographer to capture the journey, matching Nolan’s ambition to film the entire project in IMAX. This allows each frame to capture the epic scale of the adventure, from the sweeping wide shots of vast oceans and clifftop castles to the claustrophobic ocean scenes where soldiers fight the might of Poseidon for their very survival.

Jennifer Lame re-teams with Nolan as the film’s editor, cutting these intense sequences together with furious momentum to match the ire of the gods. The naval sequences are especially impressive, conveying a great sense of dread equally among all the sailors attempting to weather the sea’s storms. Quick cuts, tight shots, all dimly lit with rapid punctuations of lightning blinding the viewer — it’s a true indicator that every contributor to this production brought out the best in each other.

This is also true of The Odyssey’s music, as Ludwig Göransson puts in another epic score that reaffirms his status as one of the greatest composers and music producers alive today. His motifs quickly become familiar and help guide the narrative, and moments of tension are brilliantly subdued and patient, swelling at the perfect moment. His progressions during the epic fight sequences add to the brutality of battle, swelling in moments of triumph or defeat, whether that be in the foggy woods of the Laestrygonians or under the cover of night in the Fall of Troy.

Though some complained about the film’s brightness and colors based on the trailers, it’s entirely vibrant and lush on the big screen. Each location has its own distinct visual identity with a unique use of color and lighting. The production designers must also be recognized for their contributions to the work. The film was shot across many different locales around the globe, and the set designs create a uniform sense of continuity that never feels out of place.

It’s no surprise that Nolan brings the best out of his collaborators, whether they’re above or below the line — and when it comes to The Odyssey’s production team, it’s evident that he trusts them to do what they do best, which elevates the entire movie.

Too much commotion has already been made about Nolan’s approach to the material, and purists might not appreciate every deviation or choice made in this version. However, the reasons behind these deviations and choices are glaring by the time the credits roll. This is an adaptation, but it’s a modern adaptation. Modern technology, sensibilities, and language are used to breathe life into one of the oldest surviving stories in the Western canon.

And that’s all in service of the underlying importance of Nolan’s version of The Odyssey, where stories live on and take their own shape. No matter who tells it, no matter what truths are embellished in the telling, no matter how the details change over time, there is a core truth to the story that not even history can erase.

Nolan prides himself on being a storyteller, and here he pays tribute to the medium that made him a prolific figure in pop culture. He wouldn’t be here without a story to tell, so it’s only fitting that he has told a story that has endured throughout the eons as only he can. The fact that he executed it at this level is certainly a feat that others will tell their own stories about.

The Odyssey premieres July 17 in theaters.