Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey Earns a 4.9 Out of 5 From One Reviewer

I went into The Odyssey very excited. This is Christopher Nolan's latest, and the cast alone stacked up fast: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Himesh Patel, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, John Leguizamo, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, and more. Nolan is one of the best working today, so I was curious what he would do with this material. I thought this movie was absolutely brilliant. It is epic on so many different scales.

Getting past the accents in Nolan's Odyssey

Going in, I knew The Odyssey from school but I was not a major historian of it, picking apart every detail. I looked at it the same way I looked at Brad Pitt sounding like Brad Pitt in Troy, or Kevin Costner sounding like Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. I liked both of those movies, so I got over it here too.

Not everyone will get past it the same way. I could not get over it with Napoleon, where Joaquin Phoenix was just talking like Joaquin Phoenix. My guess is that is because Napoleon is more historical, while this is more fantastical, built around mythology. That is something people might get hung up on going in.

Casting rumors around The Odyssey that turned out untrue

There are casting rumors and character rumors floating around this movie that are simply not true. I will not spell out which ones. My advice is to go watch it for yourself and judge it as you will.

There is also one stretch of the movie where I genuinely worried for a split second. I had been locked in for the entire film, and then I caught myself thinking, "Oh, no," wondering if it was starting to lose me. Then that moment passed and I was right back into it. That reaction might not be universal. I saw a couple of people who thought parts of it were a little slower or boring. I did not feel that way myself.

I saw it in IMAX and I recommend seeing it that way. It was made for IMAX, and the whole thing was shot in IMAX.

Matt Damon's Odysseus swings between epic battle and A24-style horror

The idea of the movie is really Matt Damon as Odysseus for the entire runtime. It is his story, moving back and forth between chapters, from Troy to the Cyclops to other events along the way for anyone familiar with the original story. There are stretches where this plays like a big sword and sandals epic with huge battle adventure, and other stretches where it plays like a creepy A24 horror film.

It is Nolan's storytelling that had me on my toes the whole way. I could not even believe I was watching a movie. I felt like I was inside the story from the moment it begins, following Odysseus as this loyal soldier, what he did at Troy, the wars and battles he helped win, and then having to be away from his family for as long as he has, trying to get back to them and dealing with what plays like PTSD as a soldier throughout.

The performance by Matt Damon is one of his best. You understand and get who Odysseus is right from the beginning.

Himesh Patel, Robert Pattinson, and Anne Hathaway among the standouts

John Leguizamo was a casting choice I questioned at first. When he was cast I wondered what he was going to be doing in this movie. His character, and how he plays off Matt Damon, ends up comforting. It works.

Robert Pattinson as the villain progressively gets better with everything he does, and he knows how to tie into things. You get a feeling for who this character is from the moment he shows up, and you like him less and less as it builds toward his scheming and conniving. Anne Hathaway gives another brilliant performance this year, playing Odysseus' wife. It gave me the same shades I got from Lena Headey in 300 opposite Gerard Butler, that same faithfulness not just to her husband but to his will and the will of their people. That played really well for me. It is being called the year of Tom Holland, but it is also the year of Anne Hathaway, who has three or four movies out this year alone.

Himesh Patel was one of the real standouts for me. He plays one of Odysseus' loyal soldiers and was really, really good, stealing a lot of the scenes he was in. Tom Holland has a bigger role than I expected, playing Odysseus' son, and he makes you care about this kid trying to find his father, help his people, and bring things back into order. I thought he did a solid job. Everyone else in the supporting cast, even if they are only in it ten or fifteen minutes, helps build the overall adventure of who Odysseus was.

No Achilles, and a fifteen minute score I thought was Hans Zimmer

I had heard Achilles was going to be in the movie. Achilles is not in the movie. I get a little confused on that story anyway, since from what I remember he was not even in the battle at Troy in the book or the original story, though I will let others correct me if I am wrong there.

When I heard the score, I thought it was Hans Zimmer. It was not, it was the composer known as Ludwig again, and he does such a great job that by the time you reach the end there is a piece that lasts around fifteen minutes. The buildup in the score had me feeling my heart racing, because this movie could have suffered from a lot of great buildup followed by a subpar ending. I have been burned by that with a couple of other movies this year, so I was worried heading into the finish. Instead the ending delivers, and I found myself on the edge of my seat like I was watching a fight rather than a movie.

Making the mythology feel real instead of cliche CGI

The other question going in was how they were going to handle the mythological material and make it feel real rather than falling into the kind of subpar, cliche CGI you got from the Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans remakes, where a lot of movies still lean on the same kind of monster looking the same kind of way.

The Cyclops and the other creatures in this movie feel real and scary. It never feels like a forced moment dropped in out of nowhere. It all fits like a bow.

My final score lands at 4.9 out of 5. Not a 5, purely because of that one split second where I wondered if the movie was losing me before it snapped right back. As I put it, does that make sense? Not really. But that is what I am going to say.

If you go in doubtful, see it, and disagree with all of this, what did not work for you?