The Odyssey (2026): Oddly Archetypal

When people think of a blockbuster, they don’t usually consider the ancient texts they had to begrudgingly read and analyze in high school. Christopher Nolan, apparently still reminiscing about his teenage years, has gone through the tedious process of turning Homer’s Odyssey into a three-hour-long, action-packed adventure for the big screen (specifically the 70mm IMAX screen). While The Odyssey (2026) presents itself as an audiovisual spectacle, it fails to fully immerse the audience due to poor casting choices and conventional movie clichés.

The Odyssey follows the journey of Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he tries to get back home from the Trojan War. The film also highlights the mental journey that Odysseus’s son and wife, Telemachus (Tom Holland) and Penelope (Anne Hathaway), embark on as they endure the turmoil he left behind. Matt Damon does an excellent job of portraying the desperation and yearning for home. Throughout his adventure, it’s evident that everything he does is dedicated to getting back to the life he left behind; this is further emphasized by the constant cuts to how Telemachus and Penelope struggle without him, showing how it’s imperative that he comes back to claim his throne as the king of Ithaca. Tom Holland does an excellent job of portraying the boyish, idealistic character of Telemachus, and Anne Hathaway perfectly demonstrates grief in a realistic manner. Robert Pattinson plays the most pathetic and cowardly version of Antinous possible; for instance, the scene where he asks his men to grab weapons and shields to fight Odysseus while he himself hides behind a wall is a lighthearted break from the heaviness of the rest of the movie. It reveals his true character, contrasting with the powerful way he carries himself before that point. Most characters are played by famous, A-List actors, such as Athena (Zendaya), Sinon (Elliot Page), and the main cast. While they are famous for good reason, and they all portray their characters incredibly well, their other roles make their appearances in a mythological film quite jarring. For instance, Tom Holland’s role as Telemachus (especially with Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) releasing immediately after The Odyssey) forces viewers to associate Telemachus with the webbed superhero. Other appearances just feel like press fodder; Zendaya was barely shown in the movie, yet she’s been on the most press tours and has gone viral for her red carpet looks for this film.  

The cinematography of this film is breathtakingly immersive. Due to the special 70mm IMAX cameras Christopher Nolan used to film the movie, The Odyssey is optimized for IMAX’s towering 1.43:1 aspect ratio; this is the first film fully shot on IMAX. This means that if viewers can watch this movie in IMAX—specifically, 70mm IMAX—they will be in the ideal conditions to experience the full grandeur of the film. However, if viewers don’t have access to this specific screen, they’re forced to watch a visually cropped version. It’s much more expensive to watch movies in IMAX, so this could be read as a money-grabbing move from Nolan. The movie is enjoyable to watch with or without the special screen, so it doesn’t necessarily make the film inaccessible; it just makes some experiences more enjoyable than others.

Still, the audio makes up for this. Every clap of thunder, every whisper muttered between the servants, and every clatter of armor surrounds viewers so completely that they feel like they’re in the moment with Odysseus, fighting to stay alive. Many people have opted for the 4D version of the film to make every moment more immersive. The score is distinctly enhanced by authentic, ancient Greek instruments, with plucks of a lyre used to sound like Odysseus’s bow being pulled. The movie is incredibly, overwhelmingly loud, but absolutely for good reason. 

Visually, the lighting maintains a natural ambiance throughout the runtime; it feels as though the light given off by the sun, moon, and stars is perfectly encapsulated into each and every scene in different ways with different purposes. For instance, during the destruction of Troy, the sky is completely black; the only light available for audiences is from the torches of the soldiers, making the scene feel more dramatic and catastrophic.

In the opening of the film, the deceitful catalyst solidifying the Greeks’ victory in the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse, is seen washed ashore. As a result of the tide, the bottom half of the horse is completely engulfed in wet sand. However, it remains majestic, as its front legs are lifted in its equestrian glory, a creative liberty Nolan took and one of the displays of the film’s artsy presentation that contributes to its visually appealing look. Most depictions consistently have the gift with all of its hooves planted.

Unfortunately, the horse is the closest thing the audience gets to an impressive creature feature, despite the many monsters Odysseus and his crew encounter. Polyphemus, the one-eyed son of Poseidon, is infamous in the epic for falling to Odysseus’s shrewd ploy, in which he tricks the cyclops into saying that a mysterious entity named “Nobody” is attacking him. Yet in the film, Polyphemus is made to seem like a wild creature with no autonomy, with his segment simply showing how isolated and dim-witted he is, as well as highlighting his speech impediment. Nolan disregards the existence of other cyclopes on the island, which made the “Nobody” scene possible in the first place, as Polyphemus would call out to his fellow neighbors after being blinded by Odysseus’s crew. The absence of this scene may seem insignificant, but it is one of the crucial events that conveys early on just what kind of person Odysseus is, along with adding a humorous touch. Other than being the guy who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, nothing else is done to really show the snarky genius of Odysseus, as Polyphemus’s segment should have introduced.

The next monsters that Odysseus’s crew falls victim to—and the next monsters that fall victim to Nolan’s quirky adaptation—are the Laestrygonians, cannibalistic giants who end up taking the lives of the majority of the crew. Instead of being depicted as enlarged, scruffy brigands, they are clad in metallic armor and weaponry that the crew would be no match for even if the giants were normal-sized. It’s as if the Laestrygonians were mocking the Greeks for their dirty win against the Trojans by using the Trojan horse, and in turn doing the same to Odysseus’s crew by attacking them in a state of helplessness. As Nolan would deem it, they violated “Zeus’s law,” a phrase repeatedly used in the script to convey the overwhelmingly superficial message of respecting hosts and showing hospitality to guests in fear of them being gods in disguise. The Greek culture that this encapsulates, xenia, goes beyond fearmongering and has been deeply rooted in tradition, not solely in myths. The custom that the story revolves around becomes an ideology that Nolan strips of meaning, making it feel shallow and unrefined.

Circe’s appearance soon after Odysseus’s crew lands on the island of Aeaea is probably one of the most enthralling and thought-provoking portions of the film. Rather than looking like a sorceress radiating divinity, she is portrayed as an unkempt woman who provides the crew with short-lived relief in her decrepit shack. Samantha Morton’s performance does a remarkable job of giving an eerie sense of comfort, with the look decided for her only amplifying the rationale of the desperate crew dropping their defenses. Circe, in a very chilling line, then reveals the truth behind Odysseus’s men—they’re abominable human beings who lack self-control and dignity. But this does not apply to Odysseus himself, unsurprisingly, as from the start, the film has molded him to be a protagonist who fits a more modern and traditional description of a hero. A lot of the imperfections of Odysseus’s character were scrapped to make him a more redeemable, empathetic man ridden with guilt, leading to the version of him in the film being a starkly different person than the one the epic illustrates. 

Alongside Odysseus, the goddess Athena accompanies him throughout the journey, with many anticipating the appearance of Zendaya. However, the goddess is no longer a prominent figure to guide Odysseus to take advantage of his own astuteness, but rather a watered-down symbol of his grief to fit the film’s cliché themes where the hero eventually regains a new sense of righteousness. Athena appears for less than five minutes in the entire film’s runtime, despite being such an important character in the development of Odysseus’s personality. As the goddess of wisdom and strategy, Athena assists in Odysseus’s schemes and rewards him in the epic for such actions, even with many of them displaying Odysseus’s haughty disregard for the gods. The entirety of the film does not seem to see the original storyline of Odysseus’s journey and feats for what they are, but instead makes him a protagonist who conforms to stereotypes, which goes against the whole point of Odysseus’s essence that sets him apart from so many other characters. Odysseus didn’t have his own entire 24-chapter-long epic named after him to just be another hero who did all the right things and repented of all the bad things he had done. He denoted the idea of self-agency that not even the gods are able to prevent, which would have been implied by his hubris that is lacking in the film. 

The Odyssey is quite an entertaining watch, but suffers from an unambitious, incomplete plot and lazy casting decisions that take away from the immersion. The best parts of the film are the most engaging ones, ones enhanced by the inherently Greek score and creative direction that allow the audience to feel the intensity of Odysseus’s journey along with his tumultuous inner conscience. However, the resolution is predictable, even for viewers who are unfamiliar with the plot. The film and its ending highlight the regrets that Odysseus faces and the realizations he’s made about his actions in the war instead of focusing on what made Odysseus and his story so iconic in the first place—his brilliance. Odysseus is a hero famous for defying the gods, a man whom any mortal is able to root for despite his arrogance. Although the film excels in its technical aspects, it fails to portray Odysseus and his world faithfully, sacrificing complexity and depth to have a more conventional protagonist.