The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s classic Greek epic, has been met with effusive reviews across the board.
The film, which stars Matt Damon as the ancient wartime hero Odysseus and Tom Holland as his son Telemachus, has received five-star raves in most major outlets, with particular praise being given to the film’s performances and sense of spectacle.
It is Nolan’s first directorial effort since Oppenheimer, the 2023 biopic about nuclear bomb innovator J Robert Oppenheimer, which won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
While it remains to be seen whether The Odyssey can match that film’s awards success – or its record-breaking $976.8m box office haul – early indications are bright, with reviewers lavishing superlatives on the ambitious new epic.
As well as Damon and Holland, the film features a giant supporting cast of stars, including Anne Hathaway (playing Penelope), Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Samantha Morton, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Travis Scott, Corey Hawkins, and Benny Safdie.
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey was among the admirers, awarding the film five stars in her glowing review of The Odyssey.
“As a feat of pure adaptation, Nolan has achieved something I admittedly thought was near impossible,” she wrote. “His stamp is all over the film – this is intellectual, brutalist, muscular Hollywood fare – yet it never wavers in its commitment to, and comprehension of, its source text.
“There’s not a weak link here in terms of performance. Damon finds balance between his hero’s bravado and his poetic introspection. Holland, doing career-best work, effectively charts Telemachus’s maturation. And there’s an especially touching turn by John Leguizamo as the blind swineherd Eumaeus. But it’s the women – Hathaway, Morton, Theron, Zendaya, and Nyong’o, who also plays Helen’s sister Clytemnestra – who really dazzle.”
Writing for The Telegraph, Robbie Collin declared The Odyssey the “film of the year” in a five-star review, describing it as an “astonishing reimagining of the ancient Greek tale of adventure and homecoming”.
It is, he writes, a “Hollywood epic stripped of the genre’s antique ceremonial armour, exposing the skeleton, organs and soul of the story beneath”.
“Featuring a tremendous Matt Damon as Odysseus and perfectly deployed supporting players wherever you look, it unfolds in that odd dual register of grandeur and intimacy that Nolan has been busily making his own – while returning to all the signature motifs of its writer and director’s earlier work, from prodigal fathers to exiles in limbo,” he writes.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw also awarded the film five stars, stating that it “reinvents the Homeric legend as a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion, an epic ordeal of anguish witnessed by the dead and presided over by capricious deities who participate on almost equal terms with the humans”.
“This is a film with thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair,” he wrote. “There are some broad-brush moments in the dialogue, yes, but even these are applied with a muscular flourish. It has gasp-inducing, Imax-sized landscapes of loneliness shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema – who, incidentally, avoids the sea’s traditional cliched colour – and full-tilt battle sequences and fight scenes accompanied by the throbbing and thrumming of drums.”
The Times, meanwhile, described the film as a “masterpiece in every way”, with the Metro and the Evening Standard also awarding The Odyssey five stars.
One of the only major UK outlets to deviate from this score was the Financial Times. Critic Danny Leigh took issue with Nolan’s dialogue, as well as Holland’s performance, nonetheless awarding the film four stars out of five.
“Nolan’s brand of greatness has always been tied up with excellence of assembly and high-end finish — qualities associated more with a Poggenpohl kitchen than cinema,” he wrote. “What has been lacking is the precious dash of madness of, say, a Stanley Kubrick.
“The Odyssey is not un-crazy. Inside the Trojan Horse, for example, is a meat wall of faces and limbs. You can only applaud Nolan for smuggling such strange, rich images into a summer blockbuster,” he continued. “A masterpiece, then? Well. This master still has major blind spots. Comedy and sexual desire remain beyond him, which means a mismatch with source material filled with both. And, with Nolan, some actors do better than others. Holland, still playing boys at 30, is comic-book basic.”
The Odyssey is out in UK cinemas from Friday 17 July.
