The filmmaker’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic holds a 98% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, currently the highest of Nolan’s career
The time has come: reviews are in for Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated epic The Odyssey. Following the success of 2023’s Oppenheimer — which earned Nolan his first Academy Awards for best director and best picture — the filmmaker turned his attention to adapting Homer’s ancient Greek epic. The Odyssey also made history as the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX 70mm film cameras.
As of midday Wednesday, the film holds a 98 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, currently the highest of Nolan’s career, and is tracking for a massive opening weekend.
The Cast and Performances
Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, the film follows the Greek king’s long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he attempts to reunite with his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son, Telemachus (Tom Holland). The ensemble cast also includes Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page, Travis Scott, Charlize Theron and more.
The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney praised the cast, writing: “Damon is superb, going to dark places seldom if ever explored in his previous roles; Hathaway is a model of steely self-possession masking vulnerability.” However, he noted that Holland is “wrong for the role,” adding that he “comes across as Peter Parker in a tunic, sapping the gravitas from Telemachus’ path to maturity.”
Empire’s John Nugent highlighted Samantha Morton’s performance as Circe, calling it “the closest Nolan has come to full-on horror, an astonishing sequence full of shocking fury and sadness at the baseness of men.”
The Visuals and Scope
Critics have unanimously praised the film’s visual grandeur. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote: “It has gasp-inducing, IMAX-sized landscapes of loneliness shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema — who, incidentally, avoids the sea’s traditional cliched color — and full-tilt battle sequences and fight scenes accompanied by the throbbing and thrumming of drums.”
Empire’s Nugent added: “The scale and scope here is, frankly, jaw-detaching. It is filmmaking at a magnitude few modern directors could ever realistically imagine, demand or execute.”
The Verdict
IGN’s Scott Collura called it “a must-watch cinematic experience,” adding: “The Odyssey isn’t perfect, but it’s a pretty great moviegoing experience all the same.”
The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin praised the film as “a strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie — by some distance, the best of the year so far.”
