{"id":587301,"date":"2026-07-15T17:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/587301\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:53:11","slug":"the-odyssey-review-set-aside-any-doubts-this-star-studded-film-is-christopher-nolan-at-his-best-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/587301\/","title":{"rendered":"The Odyssey review: Set aside any doubts. This star-studded film is Christopher Nolan at his best \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Odyssey<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d8<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Director:<\/strong> Christopher Nolan<\/p>\n

Cert:<\/strong> 15A<\/p>\n

Starring:<\/strong> Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron<\/p>\n

Running Time:<\/strong> 2 hrs 52 mins<\/p>\n

Cinema history is littered with the disastrously ambitious pet projects that directors got to make after winning all the Oscars<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When Christoper Nolan<\/a> announced he was to follow up Oppenheimer<\/a> by adapting a foundational text of western literature, more than a few pondered the (appropriately Greek) concept of hubris. In recent weeks, overheated anti-woke warriors, performatively annoyed by racially diverse casting, have wished the gods\u2019 anger upon this singularly ambitious film-maker.<\/p>\n

They do not look to have got their way. Yes, Nolan\u2019s take on Homer\u2019s classic, the tale of Odysseus\u2019s journey back to Ithica years after the Trojan Wars, suffers from a few of his signature failings. <\/p>\n

Despite being set around the Mediterranean, it takes place in pervasive gloom that overdoes weather as pathetic fallacy. The groaning celebrity cast (another Nolan trait) offers the most conspicuous connection with sword-and-sandals flicks of Hollywood\u2019s golden age. You know all these people. Matt Damon<\/a> is Odysseus. Tom Holland<\/a> is Telemachus. Zendaya<\/a> is Athena. Oh, for a fresh face to break up the galactic clutter.<\/p>\n

Those gripes acknowledged, it would take a malcontent of the grimmest stripe to deny the creative momentum that Nolan has here generated. This is a vast, crunchy entertainment that touches on durable themes while ensuring we are never more than five minutes from violent stirring that will cause the hugest cinema to quake as if giants were dismantling the foyer. This is the best of Nolan in, perhaps surprisingly, the most appropriate setting.<\/p>\n

The story has been so repeated it can bear only brief summary. Sometime after victory at Troy, Odysseus remains still (literally for once) a lotus eater on the isle of Ogygia with the persuasive nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron<\/a>, and why not?).<\/p>\n

At home, his wife, Penelope, in the convincingly fraught form of Anne Hathaway<\/a>, repels brutish suitors \u2013 Robert Pattinson\u2019s<\/a> oily Antinous among them \u2013 while striving to believe her husband still lives. Her son, Telemachus, fumes. <\/p>\n

After some more throat-clearing, Odysseus and his crew set sail for the old country again. Sirens, witches and a one-eyed colossus await.<\/p>\n

It is fruitless to worry if The Odyssey looks and sounds \u201cauthentic\u201d. Even if the film were a perfect facsimile of this locale in 1200 BC, nobody alive could confirm that was the case. As every mainstream film-maker has done when tackling classical texts, Nolan and his gifted team \u2013 the production designer Ruth De Jong and the costume designer Ellen Mirojnick among them \u2013 have, successfully in their case, set out to create an stylised ancient world that succeeds on its own terms: various eras of armour blending into a catch-all heroic aesthetic. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Christopher Nolan interview: \u2018It\u2019s exciting to bring The Odyssey out. It\u2019s also terrifying\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Some may find the decision to speak only in American accents disconcerting at first, but, no more absurd than using only Rada vowels, the strategy quickly fades from notice.<\/p>\n

The film necessarily has an episodic quality. Working through a moral theme that connects with modern sensibilities, the script has much to say about \u201cZeus\u2019s law\u201d \u2013 an argument for mutually beneficial hospitality \u2013 as we move past shrouded sirens to a sticky Hades. <\/p>\n

Kept aloft by an adequately stolid performance from Damon, the film is at its best when at its wildest and weirdest. The lumbering Cyclops, who suggests Goya\u2019s Saturn Devouring His Son, ends up as a pitiable figure. Samantha Morton\u2019s<\/a> sly Circe anchors a superb sequence that digs deep into a horror sensibility.<\/p>\n

Maybe the film, as is sometimes the case with Nolan, lacks an emotional core. But the sensory overload is so enormous that it proves hard to care. Shot fluidly on 70mm Imax cameras by Hoyte van Hoytema, and scored with symphonic wit by Ludwig G\u00f6ransson, this take on the epic return of the sometime Ulysses should wear away even the most passionate resistance.<\/p>\n

In cinemas from Friday, July 17th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Odyssey \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d8 Director: Christopher Nolan Cert: 15A Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[26253,8279,30852,18,117,19,17,157255,8000,11751,59482,18237,18238],"class_list":["post-587301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-charlize-theron","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lupita-nyong-o","tag-matt-damon","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-samantha-morton","tag-tom-holland","tag-zendaya"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116925274674704676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}