Released: 9th April
Seen: 20th July
In the 8th century BC, Homer wrote the epic poem The Odyssey. The poem spanned over 12,000 lines and told the story of a warrior trying to make his way back home, a story that would go on to be one of the most adapted tales in history. It’s been told as a straight-up epic, an opera, a crime comedy by the Coen brothers, a futuristic animated cartoon, if you can think of a way for someone to retell the story of The Odyssey, it’s probably been done. Probably the obvious way to tell the story is as the grandiose epic, after all an epic poem deserves an epic adaptation and this one has already had a few of those before… but until now, it hasn’t been thrown into the hands of a cinematic icon like Christopher Nolan who seems to revel in proving to the world that he’s one of the greatest filmmakers of all damn time.
The Odyssey tells the story of the King of Ithaca, Odysseus (Matt Damon), who went off to fight in the Trojan War some 20 years ago and hasn’t been seen since. His wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) tries to honour his wishes by seeing suitors who she can remarry despite her belief that her husband is still alive, trying to get home to her. Her son Telemachus (Tom Holland) also believes that Odysseus will return to them and goes off to try and find him, unaware that one of the suitors, Antinous (Robert Pattinson) has sent men to kill him so he cannot return to claim the throne later. Of course, Telemachus and Penelope were right that Odysseus is alive and trying to make his way home, he just has to deal with a cyclops, a witch, the Trojan War itself and a bunch of very angry Gods… he’ll be fine, surely.
Nolan appears to have taken the description of “An Epic” as a challenge and made one of the most grandiose epics to have ever been made for cinema. Everything about The Odyssey is just epic; few other descriptive words describe what can be seen on screen. From the landscapes to the performers to the cameras, everything is the most over-the-top, epic thing you can possibly imagine, and it all just works. Not only is everything as large as possible, it all feels real enough that you could just reach out and touch even the most otherworldly creature on film. There’s never a point where you’re pulled out of the film because something feels out of place (unless you’re a moron who got upset because Helen of Troy is played by a black woman, but if you’re one of those people then no one really cares what you think)
For the official record, while this film was made specifically for the IMAX format (as in they literally just filmed everything in IMAX, an insane idea that only a madman would attempt) I didn’t go to the IMAX cinema that’s a few hours away from me to see it, why bother when there’s a perfectly good cinema 5 minutes away that’s showing a version that does the job. In the format 99% of people will see, this movie looks transcendent. I’m certain the IMAX version looks even better; the extra frame space alone will undoubtedly create some glorious imagery, but it’s fortunately not needed to enjoy this film a lot. As a grand experiment to see if you can film a 3-hour epic on IMAX cameras, this works well enough that even if you’re a non-IMAX viewer you’ll still get a great experience.
Part of why the experience of The Odyssey is so great is that you really do feel the intensity of the story; they set everything up so carefully and present things in a non-linear fashion that’s so careful about making sure each story beat works. Its ability to set up big moments hours ahead of time and still have them land is to be envied; there’s a confidence that the audience will keep up with everything that’s honestly refreshing. The story is so perfectly told that even though it’s 3 hours long, it feels like it goes by in half that; there is never a moment where it feels like they’re drifting off into pointless tangents that make you lose focus on the film. Once The Odyssey has you it will not let you go.
It also helps that the entire cast are delivering some career-best performances. Everyone is doing something truly captivating, Matt Damon basically carries the film on his shoulders with incredible ease, Anne Hathaway delivers emotions in a way that I didn’t know human beings were capable of, Tom Holland continues his reign as a teenager who can make you cry with just a few wide eyed looks, Robert Pattinson revels in playing a smarmy bastard that’s so hateable you want to punch his pretty face in and of course the two controversial castings (again, only controversial to absolute brain-dead dullards with nothing better to do with their lives than lick Elon Musk’s shitty boots) of Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o use their very brief screen time to absolutely destroy the audience with a few well chosen lines. Believe it or not, that’s me restraining the number of people I could be praising because the fair way to do this would be to just list the entire cast and praise them all; there isn’t a weak link in the bunch. It’s just kind of obvious which ones would be the standouts that we’ll probably have to talk about again during awards season because it will be a shock if this cast doesn’t get a look in when that time comes.
The Odyssey is so good that it’s almost frustrating. There’s a part of me that wants to just be snarky and mean about it, Nolan is so sure he’s one of the best film makers of all time and so he spent a quarter of a billion dollars to use IMAX cameras to film his adaptation of one of the most famous stories of all time and god damn it not only does he pull it off but he makes about as close to a perfect movie as you could imagine. It’s great, we all knew it would be great just because of who made it and there’s a part of me that wishes he would stumble just once so that his ego about being one of the greats wasn’t so justified but goddamn it, this epic adaptation of Homer’s work is something so undeniably great that nothing can stop it. It’s just perfect, a truly remarkable film that will undoubtedly only get better with age.
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