The Odyssey (2026)

NOLAN WEEK continues....

Adapted from the legendary tale written by Homer, this is the epic tale of one man's treacherous journey home after leading a war effort which has left both him and his men broken and continuously in danger. That war was the Trojan War and the man is Odysseus (Oscar-winner Matt Damon) who yearns to get to his home country of Ithaca where he is king, so that he can reunite with this wife Penelope (Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway) and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland).....or DOES he??  And along the way of this journey, Odysseus and his men will encounter several otherwordly threats Calypso (Oscar-winner Charlize Theron), Circe (Oscar-nominee Samantha Morton) and the Cyclops (Bill Irwin).  This is the latest big budget production from Oscar-winning writer/director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento, Inception) as a follow-up to his beloved Best Picture winner Oppenheimer from three years ago.  Also included among the stellar, extended cast are Robert Pattinson, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, Corey Hawkins, Himesh Patel, Mia Goth, and Emmy-winner Zendaya.  Let's find out if it's time to.....DEFY THE GODS.  

Host & Editor: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon 

Transcript

THE ODYSSEY - 2026

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth, Will Yun Lee, Elliot Page, Jimmy Gonzales, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia, Corey Hawkins, Logan Marshall-Green, James Remar, Travis Scott, and Zendaya

Genre: Fantasy Epic

As a long-time Chris Nolan fan who has seen all but three of his films MULTIPLE times in theaters, I came into this with honestly less anticipation than I had ever had before with any new release of his. (Yes I was PUMPED to see Insomnia on opening night! ;)) And that's because I had a lot of apprehension about him taking THIS on as his next big project...sorry I was more excited about him doing a modern remake of Blue Thunder. This just felt like too BIG of a subject matter for a filmmaker whose films IMHO had been getting increasingly bloated and self-important in recent years....another EPIC "great man" story so soon after the mildly overrated (IMHO) Oppenheimer just had me extremely skeptical. 

And I will say this: this is a step-up from Oppenheimer (and its overtly talky low-stakes final hour) in two key ways:

1. This narrative (with a mostly strong screenplay from Nolan, probably his best since Inception) knows where it's going and even though it gets a BIT ponderous and repetitive at points along the way, it GETS there! :) The final 30 to 40 minutes are really strong, elevating the movie in a way which caught me off-guard. The themes which he is attempting to explore (with Homer obviously as a launching point) are not only clear-cut AND topical, but they are (to my pleasant surprise) also very well-matched with the mythology being adapted here. 

Yes some of the dialogue DOES sound a tad too contemporary at points but after having rewatched this film's unofficial "prequel" this past week - Troy (The Extended Cut) - I was reminded of just how clunky this COULD have all sounded when watching otherwise good actors like Brad Pitt or Brian Cox stumble their way attempting to talk like they did during the Bronze Age. You simply don't cast folks like Matt Damon or Tom Holland and then saddle them with lines of dialogue along the lines of "Immortality! TAKE it! It's YOURS!!!" 😆

2. Tackling this adaptation plays into Nolan's strengths as a storyteller in a way that I should have been expecting but strangely didn't: SHOW don't TELL.:) Film is a VISUAL medium and over the past 25 years going back to Memento, Nolan has mostly had a keen understanding of that. Minimal exposition and and an keen focus on visual detail is why Dunkirk worked SO well, that being his last great movie. This movie approaches greatness whenever he's allowing his camera (Oscar-winner Hoyte van Hoytema returning as DP) to linger on an unforgiving sea slowing down our protagonists on their journey or a crowded hall of opportunistic suitors constantly talking over each other OR an alarmingly natural-looking oversized cyclops inhabiting the same dark cave as said protagonists. :o 

This is undoubtedly Nolan's scariest film and at least consider me very grateful for the success of Oppenheimer that this has now freed him to once again direct R-rated films, allowing him to go HARD when he needs to! And several harrowing elements of this story benefit from that....this film is never particularly gratuitous in its violence but it does the job at some critical points in the story. 🫣 Especially when we FINALLY see up close the brutality of the sacking of the city of Troy. 

As an audience, we really grasp the scale and scope of this story in a tactile manner which mythical epics along these lines - like the aforementioned Troy or 300 or even Gladiator (great movie but some of that 2000 CGI hasn't aged as well) - can't always accomplish. The main band of Ithaca-based soldiers lead by Damon's Odysseus which we follow for most of this film's runtime have to visit several punishing locations and we FEEL their fear and exhaustion pretty much every step of the way!

The cast is strong across the board, honestly no weak links - everyone does what they're hired to do no matter how little screen-time some of them have to work with. Standouts include John Leguizamo as the blind, wise Eumaeus, Robert Pattinson as the ruthless Antinous, Elliot Paige as the tortured Sinon, Himesh Patel as Eurylochus (who is sorta Odysseus' lieutenant), and Lupita Nyong'o as the now-embittered Helen. Oh and Jon Benthal as her husband Menelaus even though he almost took me out of the movie. He's genuinely good here but sorry, his character is still pretty much written in the SAME often celebrated "Let me tell you something..." style which he has played as more contemporary characters on shows like "The Walking Dead" or "We Own This City." I mean he's GOOD at it, I always enjoy it, but I just can't help but notice it at this point. 😁

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film):

Now the score for this film, it comes to us from Swedish composer Ludwig Goransson who has TRULY become one of the elite film music creators of the past decade having now won THREE Oscars for Black Panther, along with previous episodes Sinners and Oppenheimer.  I’m going to get more into this in the next category but let’s just say that I THINK I like this score?  It’s less orchestral than anything else he has done for those other films and likely more scaled down…..apparently using instruments from the time period where this film took place including the Greek version of the flute which is known as a Aulos.  If nothing else, the score does an often effective job of setting a melancholy tone throughout most of this film. (Audio clip) 

Not sure if I was disappointed but it just wasn’t as EPIC as I would have expected given the epic subject matter.  There IS one stand-out track which I knew I liked upon hearing it in the theater, which not only incorporates ancient Greek instruments but also choral voice.  And I like it even more now that I can ACTUALLY hear it more clearly.  It’s simply a GORGEOUS piece of music for a truly gorgeous ending which I will not dare spoil – the final haunting image of this film combined with this music left me pretty stirred at the end.  This track is called “Chasing The Escaping Sun.” (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):

Does the story drag at points? Yeah unfortunately it does even though I'm not completely sure exactly what I would cut out. Even though it's all very well-shot, some of the stops along the way of the titular Odyssey start to feel episodic....to the point where it's not always clear how many soldiers on how many boats are still left at points. With so many different destinations and so many jumps back-and-forth in time, it sometimes confuses the stakes of who is still traveling with Odysseus along the way....

And…..I was kind of hinting at this just earlier but WOW….this has become SUCH a Nolan thing for me over the past 15+ years: pretty much every new film of his since (and including Inception, though it kind of serves that movie) has had a sometimes garbled sound mix. :o Now I saw this in Dolby on the SAME screen where I had just recently seen movies like Project Hail Mary and Marty Supreme....both of those films sounded perfect sorry. Whereas with this film, the score sounded too overpowering at points where you could hear the bass REALLY vibrate and yup....I was just not able to make out some key lines of dialogue. 🙄 

INCLUDING the VERY last line of dialogue, which also happened with Oppenheimer too! (And I saw that one in IMAX) And even though I'm now in my '50's, my hearing is still pretty good. Now I didn't notice this issue quite as much as I did for Oppenheimer or Tenet....and it's not quite as egregious for The Odyssey as this story is just not as dialogue-driven. But come on now...these are well-financed productions here, WHY is this still a thing with Nolan films? Are too many theaters just bungling the sound with HIS movies only?? 😜  You got me and I guess it's just something I have come to expect seeing his movies on the big screen now. (I DID enjoy Tenet more with subtitles and headphones, watching at home 🤔)

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

As much as I REALLY enjoy the final act of this film, there is still a TRUE standout sequence roughly about half-way through featuring Samantha Morton's Circe....she not only gives one of this film's best performances but her character (who is a witch I believe) helps insert some body horror (!) into the story in a manner which was pretty inventive. (And sort of a throwback, this felt '80's peak era stuff out of An American Werewolf In London or Fright Night 🙂) Not gonna spoil it any more than that but let’s just say that after THIS sequence, I’m holding out hope that Nolan will go full-on horror for his next film….he’s MORE than got the chops.

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

So yes BACK to Nolan….even with an admittedly star-studded cast ALL of whom I think do what they’re hired to do….even Tom Holland, the REAL star of this film at the end of the day is clearly its director.  The visual splendor still remains – even when those sound issues still keep coming back – and from a writing standpoint, I feel like he really DOES raise his game a bit especially with the unenviable challenge of bringing a contemporary spin to a story which is now almost 3000 years old.  And while I don’t agree with EVERY choice he makes as a director – there’s a sequence featuring The Sirens which I think left me more confused than engaged – he make a LOT of good ones, including taking such a broadly scoped story and bringing it to a more intimate level.  For writing and directing his BEST film since previous episode Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan is the MVP. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Overall, The Odyssey was a bit better than I expected....more often than not, I found it tense, visually impressive, and thought-provoking. And Damon leads it well, he still a formidable action protagonist on-screen after all these years! Not quite top-tier Nolan but certainly worth watching....and maybe even rewatching, albeit with hopefully better sound.

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And that ends another ZEUS’ LAW COMPLIANT review!