'The Odyssey' Review
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Where does one go after redefining the game?
Every decade has one visionary director who completely changes the blockbuster game forever. The 70s had George Lucas, the 80s had Steven Spielberg, the 90s had James Cameron, and the 2000s had Peter Jackson. For the last 18 years, we’ve had Christopher Nolan. After garnering attention with his sophomore directorial effort, Memento, in 2001, Nolan remained a permanent fixture in the film world. After the success of Batman Begins and the moderate success of The Prestige, Nolan would then go from a promising prospect to the one to beat. In 2008, The Dark Knight became a worldwide Phenomenon, received critical acclaim, made over a billion dollars (the first superhero movie to do so), and gave Christopher Nolan a “I can do whatever the hell I want” card that he has used non-stop for the last 18 years. The 2010s started off strong with the release of Inception, which made over $800 million and outgrossed a barrage of highly-anticipated sequels like Iron Man 2, Eclipse, and Shrek Forever After. The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, and Dunkirk were also all critical and financial successes, though there has been much debate as to whether or not they measure up to The Dark Knight and Inception. Tenet may have received the worst reviews of Nolan’s career (even though reception was still positive) and didn’t make a lot of money (*gestures to the state of the world in 2020*), Oppenheimer proved that Nolan is still a commercial institution within himself.
There has been a lot of talk about who is “the next Steven Spielberg.” While many blockbuster prospects have received that title, to me, nobody has earned that moniker more than Christopher Nolan. There has never been a time where Nolan wasn’t successful, but ever since The Dark Knight, he has held the cultural zeitgeist in his hand every time he drops a new movie. In an era of rising ticket prices, shorter release windows, questionable corporate mergers, and the continued reliance on streaming, Nolan being able to sell any movie, have it generate instant hype, and often reach box office heights that not even Spielberg has reached in quite some time is power you can’t buy. Films like Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer being major box office hits doesn’t happen unless Nolan’s name is attached to the project. After finally winning the Academy Award for Best Director for Oppenheimer, Nolan has returned with what is arguably his biggest film to date;The Odyssey.
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mage Source: Deadline
Lately there has been a lot of discussion of whether or not Christopher Nolan is “past his prime.” This conversation has been happening since The Dark Knight Rises, with every film released after Inception constantly being compared to it and The Dark Knight. Interstellar may have a lot of fans now, but it wasn’t a hot take in 2014 to call it his worst movie. Some even believe that Nolan’s Oscar win for Oppenheimer was a career win rather than an honor for his achievements on the film itself. The Odyssey is proof that Nolan is still at his artistic peak. I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted Nolan doing a major fantasy epic, but he pulls it off insanely well. Like his Batman trilogy, Nolan takes long-existing source material and both remind the audience why it’s lasted so long and mold it in his own image. The theme of people trying to defy impossible odds is a theme that pertains through all of Nolan’s work, and it’s on full display here. The Odyssey is the most ambitious film of Nolan’s career, but it’s also one of his most human. A tale of redemption, courage, and sacrifice, Nolan never loses focus on the characters despite the immense scale and high number of characters. You’re instantly hooked by the production design, the lovely special effects, and the immersive score by Ludwig Göransson.
The Odyssey is proof that no story is too old to remain relevant. Despite the obviously astro-turfed backlash due to Nolan’s inclusion of Black, Asian, and trans actors, the film’s political vigor doesn’t come from its cast, it comes from its story. The best of humanity, as flawed as they can be, coming together to overcome their own sins and take down authoritarian regimes and power hungry freaks who want to make everything worse for everybody. Like Batman, Dom Cobb, Cooper, and J. Robert Oppenheimer before him, Odysseus is an insanely flawed protagonist. The film never shies away from showcasing what Odysseus does badly. He’s an absent father, he’s not a great husband, he kills people, he puts his men in harm’s way multiple times. However, the beauty of The Odyssey is seeing Odysseus overcome his struggles to become a hero. Telemachus’ journey from naive kid to brave young hero is the film’s other main narrative that keeps it all together. While Christopher Nolan frequently gets criticized for making his scripts confusing and convoluted, he lays out the themes in a way that anyone (including people who never read Homer’s Odyssey) can follow. You know what the story is about, the characters’ whole deal is, and you’re always engaged even when action sequences aren’t happening. With the help of editor Jennifer Lame (who won an Oscar for Oppenheimer) and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (who has been Nolan’s regular cinematographer since Interstellar), The Odyssey is intense, beautiful, and always thematically and visually coherent. Another shining example of why Guillermo del Toro’s referred to Nolan as an “emotional mathematician”.
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What’s a Nolan film without a great cast? Like Oppenheimer, it was a guessing game as to which well-known actor was going to make their way into The Odyssey next. Matt Damon (his third collaboration with Nolan and his first as the lead) delivers one of his most memorable performances to date. Damon comes with the right amount of dramatic heft, charm, and yes, general badassness to pull off Odysseus. In an era where the conversation of what makes a movie star and how many are left persists, Damon makes a great case for why he’s one of, if not our very, best movie stars to date. Anne Hathaway (coming off of a prolific year) is a revelation as Penélope, delivering her best performance since her appearance in The Dark Knight Rises. Robert Pattinson is remarkable as Antinous and makes the case of giving the film’s best performance. His slimy, sinister, and disturbing energy is perfectly played in every scene. Anyone with eyes knows Robert Pattinson is a great actor and The Odyssey is another feather in his cap of stealing movies that he’s not even the lead of. However, and this is an unpopular opinion, the best performance in the film comes from Tom Holland as Telemachus. While some have bemoaned him as being “miscast” and Film Twitter users and Redditors itching for clout are taking scenes out of context and saying his performance is bad, Holland does just as much heavy lifting as Damon does. He trades the wide-eyed charisma he’s known for as Spider-Man for a role as a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Holland gives a more action hero-esque performance than the rest of the cast who are given more meaty roles to bite on, but that doesn’t make him the weak link of the cast. Should Nolan work with Holland again down the line, that’d be amazing. Zendaya is also great in her brief, but memorable, performance as Athena.
The supporting cast is also remarkable here. Charlize Theron as Calypso, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, and Eliot Page as Sinon all do great work here as well and are in the film a lot more than the marketing suggests. Benny Safdie is also great as Agamemnon, as is Lupita Nyong’o in the dual roles of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Sadly, neither are in the film nearly as much as I’d like them to be. Like Oppenheimer, you have to get used to big-name actors only appearing briefly. That being said, Samantha Morton as Circe and John Leguizamo as Eumaeus damn near steal the movie. It’s insanely incredible how skilled these two performers are in this film. Morton specifically couldn’t have been in the film longer than a few minutes and she steals the show instantly. Talk about spell-binding.
Image Source: Entertainment Weekly
All in all, The Odyssey is another masterpiece in Christopher Nolan’s cap of endless classics. Just as ambitious, beautiful, and engaging as his previous work, The Odyssey is thrilling and breathtaking in every sense of the word. From his ambitious direction, the beautiful cinematography, the unique score, the thrilling action, the glorious costume design, and a wickedly talented cast (particularly Damon, Holland, Hathaway, Morton, and Pattinson), it all just clicks. Nolan, his team, and his crew continue to fire on all cylinders and deliver some of the greatest blockbusters in the game.
In a recent interview, Nolan has stated that he intends to take 3 years off, which is typically the timeline between movies since Interstellar. After Oppenheimer, I kept saying to myself and others that there’s no way he can get bigger than this. And with The Odyssey, he did exactly that. Whether his next film is a horror film, a western, another sci-fi film, his long-gestating adaptation of The Prisoner, or his unmade Howard Hughes film, we can be sure of three things. It’s gonna be massive in scope, it’s gonna have a stacked cast, and it’s probably going to prove once again that the words Christopher Nolan and “past his prime” don’t belong in the same sentence.
Rating: 10/10
The Odyssey is now playing in theaters everywhere! Rated R
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