I move through the darkness, each of my steps battling the stickiness of the floor as I make my way to my seat at the cinema in Fisketorvet, Copenhagen – excited to see the epic tale on screen the way Christopher Nolan intended: in IMAX. The ads begin. Spiderman with Tom Holland and Zendaya, then Dune with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, and more movies with the aforementioned actors to come… The screen goes black for slightly longer, followed by loud, booming noises. A FACE. A FLEET. A WAR. A THOUGHT. A TRICK. The ancient epic begins.
Or at least, what should have been an epic. The movie ultimately feels like bathing in a pile of mud – and not the expensive spa kind. If you like the colors brown and grey, overtly loud noises, and soulless attempts at grandeur, then Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is for you.
In a setting naturally full of colour, warmth, and pure raw vitality, Nolan somehow takes his decades of incredible and expert filmmaking experience and manages the impossible: making it all seem dull and uninteresting.
Worry not about the spectacle for which Nolan is famous in his movies – it is there. It is big and full of wonderful practical effects that enhance the reality of the scenes, but through it all, however big and loud they are, they are ultimately dull and lifeless. The entire movie centers around a muted brown-and-grey palette that bleeds into the darkness of the cinema, paired with a sound mix so loud it overwhelms every other sense.
Worse still are the fundamentally empty characters and narrative. Across the epic, dreary adventures of Odysseus, we meet no characters who pull the audience in. They are mostly flat Hollywood caricatures of real people. The male characters are mostly famous actors playing themselves while reading the script off a page, while the female characters are handed the distinct lack of depth Nolan is infamous for.
Above all else, the writing stands out as the most egregious flaw. It is worth understanding that the nature of adaptation requires altering themes to better fit a modern audience – but the writing of The Odyssey reveals a lack of soul, a lack of passion or care for the source material itself. An adaptation should preserve the essence and themes that make Homer’s epic poem a classic, but this one fails to understand or represent the themes of the original text. It is not about an epic ancient warrior, the glory-obsessed Odysseus, but rather about a sullen “dad” Matt Damon regretting being a war hero while being haunted by Zendaya in a scarf, staring at him with the exact same expression she wears in every film..
An entire essay could be written about how this movie fails not only as an adaptation, but as an experience for its audience. Regardless, all I have is a page in a magazine, so here is my conclusion: the culmination of boring, monotone big scenes that are big and loud for the sake of being big and loud; the terrible script that at times makes the movie seem like a parody; and the complete lack of memorable characters lead Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey to be a fundamentally forgettable movie.
You might find this review harsh. I admit that seeing the potential of what this movie could have been made the stark contrast with the all the more disappointing. But even a person unfamiliar with Homer’s epic poem will see this movie, perhaps enjoy it in the moment, and immediately forget it once the credits roll. That is the ultimate truth of The Odyssey: it is thoroughly, completely uninteresting.
2/5
