In Theaters and Digital

I've been hard on Christopher Nolan for years. Not because I ever questioned his intelligence—few filmmakers working today possess his technical command or his appetite for spectacle—but because I often feel like I'm admiring the machinery instead of getting lost in the story. Whether it's Memento, The Prestige, or Inception, I usually leave impressed by how it was put together more than moved by what I just watched. That's been Nolan's calling card for decades.

The Odyssey doesn't change that. It isn't some great course correction or a reinvention of Christopher Nolan. It's still unmistakably his film, with all the strengths and frustrations that come with that. But it is easily his most visually ambitious work, and some moments simply leave you in awe.

The practical effects are extraordinary. At a time when so many blockbusters disappear beneath layers of CGI, Nolan's insistence on building environments, staging physical action, and putting real things in front of the camera gives the film a weight that's impossible to fake. The Cyclops sequence alone is worth the price of admission. It feels massive because it is massive. The ships, the cliffs, the storms, the temples—everything has scale. You don't just watch this world; you feel its size.

If you're going to see The Odyssey, see it in 70mm IMAX. This is exactly the kind of filmmaking the format was made for. Hoyte van Hoytema fills every frame with images that remind you why people still leave the house to watch movies.

Unfortunately, the acting never catches up to the filmmaking.

On paper, this cast should be unstoppable: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal, and Mia Goth. Too often, you're watching actors rather than characters. Jon Bernthal is the biggest offender. Every time he appears, he isn't another figure from Homer's world—he's The Punisher wearing a breastplate. It's the kind of performance that pulls you out of the picture instead of drawing you deeper into it, and several members of the cast never quite escape the same trap.

That's what makes The Odyssey such a glorious, frustrating experience. I admired it for almost every minute I watched it. The practical effects are astonishing. The scale is enormous. The ambition is undeniable. But I was never completely swept away because the people inhabiting this world never felt as epic as the world surrounding them.

Ironically, this is one film that could have benefited from borrowing more than Homer's plot. It could have borrowed some of his poetry. Nolan gives us the monsters, the spectacle, and the impossible journey, but somewhere along the way the myth itself gets lost. I kept wishing he'd trade a little of his precision for something more poetic. Not because The Odyssey needed to be more complicated, but because it deserved dialogue and performances that felt as timeless as the images.

I still admire what Nolan accomplished here. Few directors would even attempt something this big, and fewer still could pull off so much of it practically. That's worth celebrating. I just wish the people standing in front of those incredible images had been as convincing as the world built around them.

MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 152 mins
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway
Genre: Action Epic
Tagline: A Film by Christopher Nolan
Memorable Movie Quote: "Why can't gods speak in ways we understand?"
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Official Site: 
Release Date: July 17, 2026
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.