“Defy The Gods”– Odysseus (Matt Damon)

The wretched nature of war relies heavily on its characteristics of vengeance and veteranism. Odysseus’s journey back home to Ithaca is an excruciatingly painful adventure. Zeus and Poseidon have teamed up to create superstitious roadblocks in order to undermine Odysseus’s heroism and duty to serve his men. Christopher Nolan, right from the first few scenes of the film, wants to let the audience swell with the epicness of the story. For the last couple of films, Nolan has utilized Jennifer Lame’s slideshow-style editing in order to express the feeling of time slipping away. It’s no secret that Nolan is entertained by non-linear storytelling and human consciousness. His new film, The Odyssey, is, shockingly, his most accessible film to date. Even if you don’t recall The Odyssey from the get-go, despite its countless adaptations and reinterpretations, this one does something that hasn’t been done before with the beloved ancient text. It feeds into Nolan’s frustrations with modernistic war.

Combating in a war that feels senseless and unrewarding becomes the counteractive destruction of oneself. In fact, Nolan wants us to really believe in the idea that war is not necessarily worth it in the grand scheme of things. Zeus metaphorically curses Odysseus for bringing his men into battle when it is not necessarily the right thing to do. The gods, of course, are hypocrites and only create certain laws to enslave humans. It briefly becomes a point about organized religion and how taking the book of the Lord literally will kill you inside and out. The gods in the film aren’t shown as their true selves. They are manifested, almost personified, in different ghostly forms. Odysseus reaches out to Athena (Zendaya) for guidance on his journey back home. The same goes for Calypso (Charlize Theron), even though she is a nymph who misdirects Odysseus into conforming to the idea of simply standing still in life.

There’s a lot to chew on. In typical Nolan fashion, this film has spurts of action, spectacle, and jaw-dropping practical effects wizardry. The entire early sequence with Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), and the terror of being trapped inside a cave with a giant ready to eat all of the burly men alive, is quite haunting to watch. In fact, Nolan has finally cracked the formula for creating a horror-adjacent sequence. Nolan has teased that he wants to make a horror film, and I think the Polyphemus sequence, along with Circe’s (Samantha Morton) witch’s (bitches) brew involving the pigs, is honestly the most frightening work Nolan has done in his entire career so far.

Performance-wise, Matt Damon delivers his finest performance since The Martian as a guy who just wants to come home to his son. The beer run at Walmart has taken so long that he has to fight off a bunch of giant 7’11” drunks, gut-bellied creatures from the pits of the cigarette section, and a few scandalous, beautiful women who want nothing but the dick and will sing to him in order to break his bro-code. This description alone is what The Odyssey is. It’s one long beer run with the boys or one long Elden Ring session.

I can go on with all the other performances in this film. Anne Hathaway, as Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, is at her wits’ end with the Suitors’ takeover of her kingdom. They eat the food cooked by the servants and are constantly talking shit about Odysseus’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland). The film’s mirrored nature revolves around Telemachus’s journey to find himself while remaining alert for an impending attack from the Suitors’ takeover of the throne. Tom Holland, at the beginning, has a jarring sense of childlike, wide-eyed innocence to his performance. It took a while for the way Holland approached this character to click with me. You really have to force yourself to separate the IP-sloppified brainrot of Hollywood in order to free yourself from Holland’s Spider-Man syndrome. After he leaves Ithaca, Holland becomes his own beast of an actor. His performance relies heavily on the avatar characteristic. He guides the audience to the inflection point of the story.

The Suitors and Penelope are also the major Kingdom Hearts key to the thematics of the film. Antinous (Robert Pattinson), the head Suitor, is ready to get some action with Penelope and is ready to strike at any minute. Pattinson, over the past few years, has played conniving characters, and this might be his best one to date. He feeds into the semi-homoeroticism of the character by teasing Telemachus (Tom Holland) in a few sequences. Circling back to Penelope, Anne Hathaway treats this role like it’s a theatrical play ready to burst into flames. Her expressive voice and body language throughout the film are poised while also determined to stab a few people in the process of continuing the mantra of Odysseus’s love for her. Hathaway deserves all the flowers for her performance.

The same sentiments go to the legendary Samantha Morton. Without spoiling the film, Circe’s (Samantha Morton) story arc showcases the true power behind Nolan defeating the “I CAN’T WRITE OR DIRECT GOOD ROLES FOR WOMEN” criticism. Samantha Morton takes that criticism and crushes it with an iron fist through her portrayal of Circe. It’s witchy, spellbinding, and earthy to the core. It sets the final precedent for what Nolan believes is the ultimatum of war while also extending his arms into the psychology of a man’s right to live in a world where violence is everything. I could name even more performances in this film that blew my heart away. John Leguizamo, as Eumaeus, portrays the character with so much heart and love for the material. Leguizamo has always been a defining character actor for quite some time now, but this role takes him to new dimensions and heights.

Himesh Patel, Corey Hawkins, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, Benny Safdie, and Logan Marshall-Green, to name a few, also ball out in their respective roles. The casting has stirred countless uncommitted controversies stemming from the pure, non-existent cultural rage of modern conservatives who just a few weeks ago, believed in Uwe Boll and how he is the savior of defeating “the message.” At a time when these types of CHUDS aren’t particularly the sharpest tools in the shed regarding media literacy and different filmic languages. Modern film have taken liberties with ancient texts in order to reflect the nature of contemporary society. Nolan’s approach is deeply rooted in grand linguistic independence from all walks of life and in finding beauty within different cultural languages. The so-called controversy surrounding the casting of The Odyssey comes from a seething imbalance of people refusing to trust the filmmaker’s intentions. Nolan has reached a point where he does not give a fuck about how the internet, which by the way is in the final stages of dead internet theory with its botted users being rewarded for racism and bigotry, operates. This is coming from a man who doesn’t own a cell phone, doesn’t buy into the artificiality of rage bait, and trusts the audience to believe that The Odyssey, as one of the most famous texts ever written, can be recontextualized for modern audiences.

He has earned this right and has constantly proven himself to be a director who respects the audience’s wishes. This adaptation of The Odyssey will stand the test of time as Gen Z’s answer to the return of the classical Hollywood blockbuster. It’s a film that transcends the narrative of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I think Nolan has fine-tuned The Odyssey into something distinctly his own while never losing the essence of the source material. The slight omissions of some of the darker elements are flipped in order to make Odysseus feel more like a father who will do whatever it takes to get home to his family.

What a time to be alive, where Nolan can become our generation’s David Lean or Stanley Kubrick per-se.

Rating: 5/5