I know the big story this week is the opening of another Nolan epic, but we did see the approach of a new overall champ for the year. For months, Mario has ruled the landscape. After this past week, Toy Story 5 is only a couple million away from taking over the top spot. That should happen sometime early this week. Then, for the near future, maybe only Spider-Man: Brand New Day seems like it has the juice to put up a huge number. As for the big release this weekend that many like me have been ever-patiently waiting for, on to the review.
After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.
I will begin this by saying I could be accused as being a Nolan-homer. All of his now 13 films are at worst very good. It is the upper level of his filmography where the greatness lives. For me, that is Inception, The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer, and The Prestige. After now watching the film twice (in 70mm and in Dolby Cinema) I am comfortable placing The Odyssey in that company of films. This film is epic in best of ways. In the big picture, Nolan has crafted a well put together story that manages to turn something that should take 5 hours to tell fully into a tight 3 hours. The original story also naturally leans into a style that Nolan is well versed in: it is told in a non-linear way. How we learn about nearly all the major events is by hearing others recollect what happened. Nolan knows what we are there to see. Everyone knows about the Trojan Horse, or the Cyclops. We however don’t get to that until about an hour in the runtime. What we spend the bulk of the first hour is getting to know all the major players and the situation they find themselves in. It is when we start to see more and more of Odysseus’s journey home that the film really works to its absolute best.
What is very visible when watching the film is the tremendous job the cast does here. Damon is great as an Odysseus we find ourselves rooting for as so many choices end so poorly, Hathaway has her capital A Acting moments here as his wife Penelope, and Pattinson plays a very good Antinous, the one suitor of many that we see the most of. If I had to point out someone in the cast that doesn’t quite meet the moment fully, it is Holland as Telemachus. He is good here, but I just wanted more from him in the third act. As for the controversial inclusions of Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o, they are collectively in the film for maybe 7 minutes, so that really shouldn’t be a reason to see this film.
So what I have talked about so far is what is visible to most who watch the film, but there is another huge part of this film that makes it the marvel that it truly is. Nearly everything you see is practical, and in a world of green screens and Volumes, that is something that deserves to be celebrated. Obviously there is CGI being used, but not as much as yo0u would think. For the Cyclops, it was a combination of forced perspective (with Bill Irwin in full makeup), a 60 foot puppet, turning a cave into a soundstage, and cgi for touchups. That level of detail is something Nolan is known for, and it is part of why he is just the best. My favorite sequence is the Greeks escaping the horse and racing to open the gates to finally break into Troy, What is fun to know is they built that city for real covering multiple acres. That makes the navigating the city, and the eventual burning it down feel much more real than most blockbusters.
I know this review doesn’t fully convey my thoughts on this film, and it is by no means a perfect film. It doesn’t need to be to get a 5/5 from me and become my favorite film of the year. This is a film that is just so rewarding on repeat viewing as you just get more from the story and the callbacks to earlier moments later in the film. Nolan does such a great job of turning such a vast story into what may in time become the quintessential version of this story. At least that is how I feel about it, but again, I am part of the Nolan cult.
There are no wide releases this upcoming weekend from what I can see. You could look at this as studios being scared off by The Odyssey, but with Spidey looming in two weeks, one would think that a studio wouldn’t let a valuable July weekend go unused. Very puzzling.
- The Odyssey
- Monsters & Minions
- Moana
- Toy Story 5
- Evil Dead Burn
Like I said above, it is a thin week on the release schedule. There was a mystery movie this Monday, but I am in Chicago at a baseball game that night, so I am missing it. What I do have Friday night is the the film recording of my favorite Broadway musical, so that is fun for me. I might end up seeing Odyssey for a third time this weekend too.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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