Review: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey Is a Beautiful, Star-Studded Ride That Somehow Forgets Its Own Star

By Klep Napier | Werarecritix.com

Christopher Nolan has never made an ugly film. That much is certain. But The Odyssey might be his most ambitious swing yet and ambition, as we all know, is a double edged sword. When you pack this much legendary talent into a single frame and then ask them to serve a story that half the world already knows by heart, you are either going to blow the roof off or find yourself in a very expensive traffic jam.

The Odyssey lands somewhere in between. And that is both the honest review and the complicated one.

What You Need to Know Going In

Nolan takes his liberties with the source material and that is fine. That is what great filmmakers do. Odysseus is played by Matt Damon and the supporting cast is genuinely staggering. Tom Holland. Anne Hathaway. Robert Pattinson. Jon Bernthal. John Leguizamo. Lupita Nyong'o. Charlize Theron. Benny Safdie. Samantha Morton. Zendaya.

Yes. All of them.

And the moment you see that list is the moment you start to understand both the promise and the problem with this film.

So Many Stars, So Little Room

Anyone familiar with how Nolan operates knows what to expect stylistically. The intercutting between past and present. The score swelling beneath dialogue that is quietly doing a lot of heavy lifting. The heist movie energy where you are tracking multiple storylines at once while the violins remind you that everything is connected and everything matters.

He does all of that here and he does it beautifully. But when you have this many marquee names attached to a single project something inevitably has to give. What gives in The Odyssey is screen time. A lot of the people who generated the most noise during the casting announcement period barely register on screen. All that outrage about authenticity and accuracy that was circling the internet? Save it. Most of those people are in and out before you have time to form a real opinion about them.

The film is so stacked with talent that Nolan's revised take on this legendary tale barely leaves enough room for everyone to properly shine the way they deserve. That is not a small problem when the whole selling point is the ensemble.

The Ones Who Actually Showed Up to Play

Here is the good news. The people who do get their moments make them count.

Tom Holland is excellent. Every scene he is in crackles and he continues to prove that he belongs in conversations about the best working actors of his generation. Anne Hathaway is the real surprise of the film. Going in I did not expect her to be a standout but she brings passion, tension and a genuine wit to her role that elevates everything around her. She earned every second she is on screen.

Robert Pattinson shows up and reminds you why his post-Twilight reinvention has been one of the more fascinating actor journeys in Hollywood over the last decade. And John Leguizamo, almost unrecognizable in this thing, is quietly one of the most compelling presences in the entire film. These four are the heart of The Odyssey whether the marketing wants to admit that or not.

And then there is Samantha Morton as Circe.

If there is one performance in this film that made me sit completely upright it is hers.

The moment she arrives something fundamentally shifts in the movie. The energy changes. The stakes feel real. Her portrayal of the witch is electric in a way that the rest of the film occasionally forgets to be and that sequence involving her character is probably the single greatest moment in The Odyssey from start to finish. If you know the mythology you know what is coming. Nolan does not flinch from it.

Watch the full out of theater video reaction below for everything else we had to say, including the burning Zendaya question we still cannot answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvDhlY6AXY

The Third Act Says Hold My Beer

The Odyssey is slow in its midsection. There is no diplomatic way to say it. Nolan is building something and he is taking his time doing it and there are stretches where that patience is genuinely tested. But here is the thing about Christopher Nolan finales. They tend to pay for everything.

The third act of this film is spectacular. It is the kind of payoff that reframes everything you sat through to get there and sends you out of the theater with something real to hold onto. It is one of the most satisfying conclusions Nolan has delivered across his entire body of work and that is saying quite a lot. When it lands it lands hard and it earns every slow minute that came before it.

The Matt Damon Problem

I saved this for last because it deserves its own space.

Matt Damon is Odysseus. The entire film is built around his journey. And yet somehow he is the least memorable thing in it. I genuinely almost forgot to talk about him and that should not be possible when discussing the lead performance of a Christopher Nolan film.

This is not about talent. We love Matt Damon. His track record speaks for itself. But as the anchor of this particular story his performance does not grip you the way it needs to. He is present without being electric. He is competent without being captivating. And in a film this visually stunning and emotionally ambitious, forgettable is the one thing the lead cannot afford to be.

One Last Thing

Why was Zendaya in this movie.

That is not a rhetorical question. That is a genuine, lingering, driving-home-from-the-theater question that I still do not have a clean answer to. You are going to have to see it to understand exactly what I mean. But trust me when I tell you it is the thing that is still living in my head and refusing to leave.

Final Verdict

The Odyssey is a dark, beautiful and emotional fantasy adventure that is almost great and occasionally spectacular. Nolan delivers the cinematography and the third act payoff you expect from him. Hathaway, Holland, Pattinson and Leguizamo give you more than enough reason to stay invested. And Samantha Morton gives you a reason to stand up and applaud.

But the ensemble is too big for its own good, the lead performance does not carry the weight the story demands and the midsection will test your commitment before it rewards it.

Solid Nolan. Not his best Nolan. But absolutely worth seeing, especially in IMAX, which I did not get to do at the early screening and genuinely intend to fix.

Go see it in IMAX. Make me jealous.

CritiX Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Review by Klep Napier, Founder, CEO and Editor in Chief of CritiX Media. MPA-Accredited Entertainment Outlet. wearecritix.com