The Odyssey review: "Mythological filmmaking of the highest order"

After the extraordinary success of Oppenheimer – almost $1 billion at the box office, a huge Oscars haul – Christopher Nolan's next epic has been the subject of fevered anticipation. An adaptation of Homer's 3,000-year-old poem, The Odyssey is a foundational text that has inspired countless stories since. But far from a dusty old tale, Nolan's take on the material is modern mythological filmmaking of the highest order.

Much like his specific lens on superhero cinema, the war movie, the space movie, the heist movie, and myriad other genres, Nolan proves electifyingly adept with fantasy. Closer in spirit to the tactile horrors of Guillermo del Toro's monstrous oeuvre than the comforting whimsy of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Odyssey's uncanny, earthy and frequently frightening renderings of the great monsters of myth (achieved via a seamless blend of practical and visual effects) are striking and unforgettable.

But at its heart, The Odyssey is about a journey home, and the cost of what it takes to get there. To this end, Nolan's thematically savvy script recontextualizes the famed Trojan Horse gambit and the siege of Troy through a thought-provoking modern lens; The Odyssey has more to say about our lives now than you might think.

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Home(r) run

Following standout supporting turns in Interstellar and Oppenheimer, Matt Damon steps up to Nolan leading man here as Odysseus, the King of Ithaca. Told across chronologically disjointed timelines (naturally) over two decades, it chronicles Odysseus' crucial role at Troy, his catastrophic, decade-long journey home by sea, and the sorry state of affairs in Ithaca, where Odysseus' void has been filled by a snake pit of suitors out to wed his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and claim his throne.

Meanwhile, Odysseus' son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), sets out on his own odyssey to discover the fate of his absent father, as the threat of uncultured 'sea people' invading Ithaca's shores escalates. This takes him to a Sparta ruled by Menelaus (Holland's Spider-Man: Brand New Day co-star Jon Bernthal) as the suitors (led by Robert Pattinson's scheming Antinous) plot the young heir's demise.

A true-blue epic clocking in at almost three hours, The Odyssey is event cinema writ large. Relayed by unreliable narrators with half-forgotten memories, it's told across a series of elliptical short stories that give each stretch of the film its own distinct flavor, making The Odyssey something like eight movies in one. From the pure body horror of an encounter with vengeful witch Circe (Samantha Morton) to the breath-snatching suspense of a stint in the Cyclops' cave, it's a thrilling blend of full-blown battles, stirring adventure on the high seas, and keenly felt emotional longing, all unfolding during the dying days of a doomed civilization.

The first narrative feature shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film, Nolan's format of choice is the definitive way to see The Odyssey, if you're lucky enough to live close enough to one of the 40-or-so theaters globally equipped to project the film in the full-frame, ultra-high-resolution format. Collaborating once again with director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema, the immersive, vertiginous cinematography captures an array of stunning real-world locations with mythical grandeur, all bolstered by Ludwig Göransson's propulsive score and some of the best sound design in a Nolan film to date. Worry not, no hard-to-hear dialogue here.

Sea no evil

Walking a satisfying line between the grounded and the fantastical throughout, The Odyssey also features a remarkable cast. The headliners are uniformly excellent (Holland nails a couple of key emotional beats and Damon is as good as he's been in recent years), but there's scene-stealing support from the likes of Morton, John Leguizamo (as blind swineherd Eumaeus), Himesh Patel (as Odysseus' increasingly conflicted second-in-command Eurylochus) and Bill Irwin, whose physical performance as the Cyclops is both chilling and pathos-filled. Even those with fleeting screentime, like Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy/Clytemnestra or Mia Goth as Penelope's treacherous slave Melantho, make an impression, a masterly balancing act given the size of the ensemble.

If there are chinks in the armor, they're negligible given the scale of The Odyssey's achievement. It gets off to a bit of a clunky start, taking a beat too long to move away from Ithaca and hit open waters. The decision to reconfigure Odysseus' seven years with Calypso (Charlize Theron) as a framing device for the amnesiac king to recount his story does occasionally cause the film's carefully modulated momentum to stumble when it cuts back to the Nymph's beach. And Nolan's tendency to over-explicate his film's messages crops up again during The Odyssey's wordy, idea-packed denouement.

But you can hardly blame Nolan for hammering the meaning of it all home when his ideas are so rich, his vision so fully realized. It isn't simply a film about a perilous journey; it's a film about the fabric of civilization itself, and how even the smallest tear can have catastrophic consequences. How war bends and corrupts even the most honorable men. Unlike Oppenheimer, however, which ends on a note of prophetic nihilism, The Odyssey still has some hope for humanity.

The Odyssey is a monumental accomplishment, an undeniable film-of-the-year contender, and one of the finest movies of Nolan's already impressive career. The question now is whether The Odyssey can replicate Oppenheimer's stratospheric box office and awards trajectory, even without the Barbenheimer bump, and sail all the way to Oscar glory.

The Odyssey releases in theaters on July 17. For more, dive into our The Odyssey beginner's guide, or check out our list of the best Christopher Nolan movies.