Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is the first film shot entirely on IMAX cameras, and it arrives at a moment when the director is the most bankable filmmaker alive. Fresh off Oppenheimer‘s $976 million worldwide gross and seven Oscars, Nolan returns to Homer for a three hour epic that is both a technical showcase and a meditation on war, home, and what it costs to survive it.
We saw it in IMAX. Here is why you should too, and a few reasons you might want to temper your expectations.
The story
Odysseus (Matt Damon) has won the Trojan War and is trying to get home to Ithaca, where Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Telemachus (Tom Holland) have been waiting for ten years. Most people assume he is dead. Suitors are circling Penelope. Telemachus is struggling to prove his father is still alive. Meanwhile, Odysseus battles cyclops, witches, and vengeful gods across the ocean. It is a three hour voyage that is part adventure and part guilt trip: Odysseus is not just fighting monsters. He is fighting the weight of everything he did in Troy.
What works
The IMAX photography
Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the entire film on IMAX. That is not a marketing slogan. It is a measurable fact, and it shows. The ocean sequences are vast and tactile, the combat scenes are filmed with practical effects, and the cyclops encounter is the scariest creature sequence Nolan has ever done. Production designer Ruth De Jong gives the world a timeless, fable like quality. The locations feel ancient and real at the same time. This is not a Marvel movie with blue screens. You can tell.
Matt Damon’s Odysseus
Damon plays Odysseus as a hesitant, aging man weary of war. This is not the chiseled hero of Troy or the 2004 Odyssey miniseries. Damon brings vulnerability: a warrior who wants to go home but knows he has done terrible things to get there. Screen Daily praises his sympathetic presence but notes he lacks the brooding fire the role sometimes needs. FlixChatter calls it Damon’s finest performance in years. The truth is somewhere in the middle: he is compelling, but the script sometimes under writes the guilt that should be eating him alive.
The ensemble
Nolan gives almost everyone a moment. Anne Hathaway’s Penelope is sharp and desperate in equal measure. Tom Holland’s Telemachus is not a huge role, but he has real weight in the third act. Zendaya as Athena and Lupita Nyong’o in a dual role are both underused but memorable. Samantha Morton as Circe is “monstrously wicked” and delivers the film’s most terrifying sequence.
What does not work
The runtime
The film is 172 minutes. It earns most of them, but the middle act – Odysseus wandering from island to island – loses narrative momentum. The structure nests flashbacks within flashbacks, which is clever, but Nolan has not always been the most emotionally nimble director. The romance between Odysseus and Penelope feels more like a plot beat than a lived relationship.
Invisible threat
The “powerful villain no one can even see” teased in the marketing is a bit of a letdown when it finally arrives. The Hand ninjas are cool, but they feel like a Daredevil crossover shoehorned into a Greek epic. The Mister Negative rumors never materialize. The villain works on a thematic level – the invisible cost of war – but not on a popcorn level.
Technical excellence
Ludwig Goransson’s score pounds and swirls. Jennifer Lame’s editing keeps the action crisp despite the runtime. The practical effects give the fantastical elements a flesh and blood weight. This is a film that wants to be seen in a theater, preferably IMAX 70mm if you can find it.
The verdict
The Odyssey is Nolan’s most epic film to date and arguably his most visually stunning. It is not as emotionally sharp as Oppenheimer or as tight as Dunkirk, but as a theatrical event, it is hard to beat. Damon carries the film, the ensemble sparkles, and the IMAX photography justifies the ticket price. If you go in expecting a tight character study, you will be restless. If you go in expecting a three hour IMAX adventure that asks big questions about war, you will leave satisfied.
Bottom line: See it in IMAX. That is where this film was made, and that is where it belongs.
