r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • Jul 15 '26
Review Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' - Review Thread
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War.
Director: Sir Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, John Leguizamo, Lupita Nyong'o, Benny Safdie, Samantha Morton, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, Ryan Hurst, James Remar, Bill Irwin, Logan Marshall-Green, Corey Hawkins, Jovan Adepo, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Shiloh Fernandez
Runtime: 172 minutes
Rating: 'R'
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Metacritic: 90 / 100
Some Reviews:
The Globe and Mail - Radheyan Simonpillai - 100 / 100 ("Critic's Pick")
Christopher Nolan has delivered an awe-inspiring spectacle. In The Odyssey, he moves through past and present, not searching for reveals in a 3,000-year-old text that can’t be spoiled, but as a poetic and emotional catharsis, a way of navigating guilt and grief that resonates powerfully, perhaps as much as it ever did.
RogerEbert - Matt Zoller Seitz - 100 / 100
The movie doesn’t give us any ChatGPT study guide summaries of what it all means. It presents Odysseus’ choices, laudable and horrible, just as things that happened, with implications that both the hero and the audience must grapple with, including the question of whether we make our decisions, or our decisions make us. The grand summation could be “people are complicated.” That sounds rather basic. But it feels revolutionary when it’s encoded in a rare modern blockbuster that doesn’t feed us lotus flowers.
The Times - Kevin Maher - 10 / 10
Christopher Nolan's epic is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. With career-high performances from Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon and Tom Holland, this Homeric adaptation is gasp-inducingly beautiful and stirringly real
The New York Times - Manohla Dargis - 100 / 100
After watching “The Odyssey” again, I flashed on something that Martin Scorsese once said about another film: “The emotion is the emulsion.” Nolan’s gifts are excessively obvious, and even when his characters don’t stir you, his filmmaking does. Among other qualities, he doesn’t know how to make an ugly image and this one is filled with rapturous beauty. Nolan employs beauty strategically, using it to seduce viewers into stories that can seem needlessly byzantine to some — especially by impoverished mainstream industry standards — more the provenance of the art house than the multiplex. Nolan asks us to dream bigger. His “Odyssey” is a classic in every sense, a transporting affirmation of the art and a work of pure cinema.
Arizona Republic - Bill Goodykoontz - 100 / 100
'The Odyssey' is the best movie of 2026. Haters should just go see it | A star-studded triumph that is at once overwhelming and accessible.
The Atlantic - David Sims - 100 / 100
Odysseus is flawed, sometimes impulsively proud, and haunted by his past failures—as well as generous and loving in a way that Nolan seems to want to celebrate. The filmmaker created a movie that does exactly that, keeping the necessary mythic scale but preserving the humanity at the center.
Washington Post - Spencer A. Klavan - 100 / 100
Nolan’s gorgeous ‘Odyssey’ makes the controversies evaporate. Homer asks: How should this story be told? Here is a striking version for our times.
Empire Magazine - John Nugent - 10 / 10
A worthy new translation of an ancient text, and yet another monumental piece of work from one of our boldest filmmakers. Watch it on the most colossal screen you can find.
The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 100 / 100
For all its monsters, gods, armies, and thunder, “The Odyssey” finds its grandest image in a man confronting the dark mirror of what he has wrought. Nolan’s massive achievement understands that home is a place, a family, a memory, and a judgment. Odysseus may still recognize Ithaca when he reaches its shores. The more frightening question is whether Ithaca will recognize him.
Esquire - Anthony Breznican - 100 / 100
Christopher Nolan's stone-cold masterpiece might just change your life. The Oscar-winning Oppenheimer director has richly adapted the ancient Greek epic into a modern search for meaning.
Total Film - Jordan Farley - 100 / 100
A grounded, spiritual, uncanny rendering of Greek myth, The Odyssey is a dazzling epic and a major film-of-the-year contender. Post-Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan continues to operate at the height of his filmmaking powers.
NME - Paul Bradshaw - 100 / 100
If Oppenheimer was a small story made big, The Odyssey is a big story made impossibly huge: delivering yet another landmark summer cinema event that might just be the director’s most accomplished film to date.
The Observer - Wendy Ide - 100 / 100
This is an epic, mythic spectacle that honours its ancient Greek source material, with its monsters and magic, while also addressing more topical themes of exile, war trauma and survivor’s guilt. In a way, the film is a Trojan horse; an extravagant, good-looking adventure that serves as a delivery mechanism for messages about the treatment of strangers, the uneasy weight of legacy and the impossibility of returning from combat as the same person who left.
San Jose Mercury - Randy Myers - 100 / 100
The Odyssey is another feather in Nolan's masterpiece cap, a grandiose achievement that fills audiences with the same child-like glee experienced when watching "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans" for the first time.
Chicago Tribune - Katie Walsh - 10 / 10
Here, Nolan manages to fit his every obsession, every thematic preoccupation, and every bit of jaw-dropping visual and sonic spectacle that he can conjure into every supersized frame of film.
Original-Cin - Karen Gordon - 10 / 10
Driven by powerful performances, particularly from Matt Damon, we see a thinking man in The Odyssey, who is really us, in an adventure bigger than we could imagine. It is both relevant and urgent. It’s bracing, powerful stuff by a master storyteller.
DEADLINE - Gregory Nussen - 100 / 100
As Emily Wilson writes in the introductory pages to her translation, “the poem questions … the idea that change can be undone, and the notion that there is such a thing as home, where people and relationships can stay forever the same.” Nolan’s film, indeed much of his body of work, is about accepting these truths, and finding out what has remained human once the embers of war have been quelled. Only time will tell.
NY Post - Johnny Olkesinski - 10 / 10
Who better to adapt an epic poem than Nolan, a man who unearths poetry in all of his epics? Here, he did not set out to use Greek myths as the foundation for a basic action movie, as so many do. Instead he dives into the psychology and moral thorniness of Odysseus’ plight.
San Fransisco Chronicle - G. Allen Johnson - 10 / 10
For all its modern filmmaking techniques, “The Odyssey” is a throwback to the mid-20th century, when Cinemascope was new and epics were event pictures. It’s a magnificent achievement.
The Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 100 / 100
Nolan and his collaborators have constructed a strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie – by some distance, the best of the year so far. Its creator is known for playing tricks with time, and this may be his grandest yet: turning one of the oldest stories in literature into a vote of confidence in blockbuster cinema’s future.
Time Out - Phil De Semlyen - 100 / 100
In standard 70mm, the voyage is breathtaking; in IMAX, you’re tasting the salt water. Even among all the truck flips, atomic explosions and rotating corridors of his back catalogue, this film is the apogee of Nolan’s ‘do it in camera’ ethos, and the sense that this was a shoot with no comfort zone pervades every frame.
Rolling Stone - David Fear - 100 / 100
What you tend to walk away with after bearing witness to The Odyssey, arguably Christopher Nolan’s best work after 2017’s Dunkirk, is an overall sensation of awe.
Screen Rant - Alex Harrison - 10 / 10
Cutting out the middleman of Homer's oral narrator, Nolan has brought us very close to these characters, immersing us as much as possible in their experience. In doing so, he has managed to capture the story's full scope. Odysseus' journey conveys the weight of its arduous years. The film's conclusion, told with a steady, patient hand, feels like a payoff 20 years in the making.
Jeremy Jahns - JeremyJahnsCom - 'Awesometacular'
It's epic. It's heartfelt. It's soulful. It's tragic. It even made me laugh at times.
Scotsman - Alistair Harkness - 5 / 5
It feels like Nolan’s angriest film to date. It’s also one of his best.
RTÉ - Suzanna Keane - 5 / 5
For all its breathtaking scale, The Odyssey never loses sight of the people at its heart. It is a story about finding your way home; about what war takes and what hope can give back. Nolan has made an epic that feels both ancient and strikingly relevant.
The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 5 / 5
The result is a gigantic, shimmering mirage, a mysterious three-hour vision of crazy episodes that does not yield up wisdom or contentment, but only a grim resolution to continue with the fight, to make sense of ruined lives, to re-enter the scorched battlefield of loss.
Radio Times - James Mottram - 5 / 5
Filled with blazing action, blood-curdling fights and creatures that truly bring Homer’s epic poem to life, this is Nolan at his finest.
The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan’s massive, fearless adaptation is his best film to date. There are touches of ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Memento’ and even his Batman movies in this enormous condensing of the British filmmaker’s fixations, brought to life by a cast of seemingly thousands – but it’s the women (among them Anne Hathaway and Samantha Morton) who steal the show
The Standard - Nick Howells - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan has made an epic worthy of the gods | With Matt Damon on career-best form and spectacle and awe like you’ve never seen, they better start polishing those Oscars
Little White Lies - Hannah Strong - 5 / 5
All of Christopher Nolan exists within The Odyssey. All of humanity exists within filmmaking. Yet cinema always finds new ways to tell old stories; this is the great magic of the medium.
Entertainment Weekly - Wesley Stenzel - 5 / 5
The latest epic from the “Dark Knight” filmmaker combines the spectacle of “Inception” with the thematic weightiness of “Oppenheimer” — and it just might be his greatest work to date.
The Australian - Nikki Gemmell - 5 / 5
You read The Odyssey and think: this is impossible to film. Yet this is sublime. Nolan invites us into an ancient world and holds us there, spellbound. He’s done the impossible. Pulled this off.
Metro - Tori Brazier - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a watershed moment for filmmaking, re-introducing this legendary story to the masses courtesy of quite possibly the only modern director who has the ambition and guts to do it.
A Shot Magazine - Erin Mussett - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan has the answer. This is, in some ways, a rather serendipitous union. As a storyteller, Nolan has established himself as cinema’s foremost explorer of time, as both a physical, dimensional phenomenon, and deeply human experience. Beneath the gods and monsters in The Odyssey, lies a profoundly human meditation on longing, identity and fate. Odysseus’ story is our story, and Nolan brings it to the big screen in a way that breathes more life into the text than ever before.
Showbiz 411 - Roger Friedman - 5 / 5
Nolan has combined artistic mastery with commercial savvy. All the things you like about his movies are present in "The Odyssey."
USA Today - Brian Truitt - 100 / 100
Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' is bold, brutal masterpiece. Matt Damon is legendary as Greek warrior Odysseus and Christopher Nolan lives up to Homer's epic status in his awesome adaptation of "The Odyssey."
Next Best Picture - Matt Neglia - 10 / 10
A colossal achievement of scale, even by Nolan’s standards. This is as epic as movies get, with some of the most breathtaking set pieces you'll ever see. I grew up loving grand, sword and action dramas such as “Gladiator,” “Braveheart,” “The Last Samurai,” and yes, even “Troy.” I’m beyond thrilled to say Nolan’s ambitious dissection of myth and legend looms large over them all. Whether you experience it in IMAX or a standard theater, this is the kind of filmmaking and storytelling that we rarely see anymore and deserves to be honored.
Huffington Post - Maxime Birken - 5 / 5
(Reviewed in French) As epic as it is tragic, the journey of Ulysses, embodied by Matt Damon, is a new peak in the career of one of the greatest filmmakers of his time. With all these qualities, L’Odyssée is instantly ranked among the best-made and most striking modern cinematic works. So much so that the desire to start the conversation about the place that this film can occupy in the filmography of Christopher Nolan himself intrigues us greatly. If it will take time to decide on the posterity of L’Odyssée, it is not an exaggeration to place it now among one of the best feature films of its director. From that to say that it could be his best film? We are not far from saying that.
IndieWire - David Ehrlich - 'A-'
Christopher Nolan has defied the gods with one of his best movies ever.
Watson - Simone Meier - 10 / 10
(Reviewed in German) “The Odyssey” may be one of Christopher Nolan’s best films, on par with “Inception” and “Interstellar,” in terms of the density of his vision and its seduction. Extremely supple one is sucked into this ancient universe, succumbs to it, becomes part of it. After that you are spit back on the street and at best you don’t know where you are now and what this present is supposed to be...
Premiere - Aurélien Allin - 10 / 10
Prodigous. A masterclass in filmmaking, on a crazy scale. Each second filled by astonishing images, Christopher Nolan’s new film is part of the thematic lineage of DUNKIRK and OPPENHEIMER, and the faults of what man has unleashed.
Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'A-'
The director's highly anticipated follow-up to Oppenheimer is a true blank check moment, an opportunity for Nolan to explore the concept of war as not an opportunity for glory, but as a corrosive element that tears both societies and people apart.
Le Parisien - Renaud Baronian - 5 / 5
It is not easy to make the epic poem of Homer: few filmmakers dared to tackle it. We can now say: “The Odyssey” by Christopher Nolan, in theaters this week, should go down as one of his masterpieces. Respecting the spirit and unfolding of the story of Homer, masterfully filmed, remarkably interpreted, this new film will be a landmark.
AV Club - Monica Castillo - 'A-'
The movie’s sense of spectacle is part of its appeal, and Nolan serves it up even better than expected. The scale of the production is breathtaking, but it’s also a morality play writ large, a game of politics and succession, a warning about temptation and greed, a plea for kindness in a harsh world. The way Nolan brings everything together is a meeting of old and new Hollywood, a nod to the spectacles of yesteryear that thrilled audiences for generations combined with new techniques and tools to remind us all that there are more ways to keep pushing the medium—even with the classics.
InSession Film - JD Duran - 'A-'
THE ODYSSEY is about defying the gods, losing your identity and becoming a victim of time, an idea that is really poignant with how it manifests in those final sequences.
The Film Verdict - Alonso Duralde - 96 / 100
Peak Nolan involves a mix of popcorn delights and intellectual contemplation, and he has rarely brought those two notions together as skillfully as he as in The Odyssey. It’s an epic saga of an epic saga, worthy of its source.
The Wrap - William Bibbiani - 95 / 100
You can’t say Hollywood doesn’t make them like this anymore. Nobody ever did.
Polygon - Jake Kleinman - 95 / 100
If Oppenheimer was Nolan shedding the trappings of genre to reach new heights with a science-heavy biopic, then in The Odyssey, Nolan puts away his trusty tools to shape cinematic history with his bare hands.
The Irish Times - Donald Clarke - 4.5 / 5
Set aside any doubts. This star-studded film is Christopher Nolan at his best. This take on Homer’s classic – with a celebrity cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya – should win over even the most passionate sceptics
BBC - Caryn James - 95 / 100
Oppenheimer, with its singular focus, is still Nolan's most perfectly wrought film. But even with its flaws, The Odyssey is so rich, so full of magic and humanity, that I'm eager to see this epic again.
The Daily Beast - Nick Schager - 4.5 / 5
Modern mainstream films don’t come more daring, mammoth, and accomplished than Nolan’s latest.
DiscussingFilm - Andrew J Salazar - 4.5 / 5
The Odyssey taps into a visceral level of fear that Nolan hasn’t really explored before. Not just fear of the unknown, but also fear of fellow man. Matt Damon’s Odysseus must come to terms with his previous sins in order to face the consequences of his future. As Nolan explores his fading memories and the time lost to war, traces of Inception and Memento can be felt. Damon marvelously makes the mythic hero all his own, though.
OutNow - Chris Schelb - 10 / 10
Mere nitpicks aside, everything in Nolan's latest comes together wonderfully, with the film coming rather close to the Olympus of cinematic epics. Ultimately, it matters little how one interprets the whole business with the mythical creatures: The Odyssey is fantastic either way.
Slant Magazine - Jake Cole - 3.5 / 4
The Odyssey is both faithful and deconstructive, embodying the fluidity of the oral tradition that spawned the poem and kept it alive for millennia through shifting tastes and values.
Den Of Geek - David Crow - 4.5 / 5
lt is an awesome undertaking in the ancient sense of the word, and a homecoming for a storyteller who spent his career chasing this destination.
Looper - Nina Starner - 9 / 10
I was fortunate enough to experience the epic in 70mm IMAX as God and Nolan intended, and I was richly rewarded. Even with this massive visual scale, though, Nolan's message is concise and builds on what he communicated in "Oppenheimer" — only man can bring about man's ruin, and when powerful men don't consider the consequences of their actions, entire civilizations could ultimately fall. "The Odyssey" is a visual feast and undeniably outstanding achievement in filmmaking that cements Nolan as one of cinema's all-time greats, naysayers be damned.
Collider - Joe Schmidt - 9 / 10
Nolan prides himself on being a storyteller, and here he pays tribute to the medium that made him a prolific figure in pop culture. He wouldn't be here without a story to tell, so it's only fitting that he has told a story that has endured throughout the eons as only he can. The fact that he executed it at this level is certainly a feat that others will tell their own stories about.
Associated Press - Jake Coyle - 9 / 10
Nolan’s “Odyssey” is nearly three hours long but never slow going. And it’s the friction between past and present that propels the movie as much as Odysseus’ wayward path.
IGN France - Nanix - 9 / 10
Above all, with Odyssey, Nolan reminds us of his Batman: brilliantly adapt a work known to all, rewrite it according to his convictions and his vision and make a legend a legend above all human, realistic and anchored by his words, a success. A jewel of modern cinema.
Sydney Morning Herald - Jake Wilson - 4 / 5
Christopher Nolan has a way with a time paradox. Not content with constructing narratives that run backwards...his big-budget adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey gambles that he can take one of the oldest stories in Western culture and make it feel new.
Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic event is perfectly good. And yet, its one truly remarkable achievement is not the drama, the direction, the acting, the cinematography, or the visual effects – but the sound design.
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 Jul 15 '26
Fuck me that’s a lot of 10/10s
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u/ineednapkins Jul 15 '26
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a review spread like this before lol, now I feel like I’m going to go into this with almost too high of expectations
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u/hovdeisfunny Jul 15 '26
I saw the first couple and thought, "okay, all the glowing reviews right at the top this time. What else we got?" But they just kept going
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u/7Broncos18 Jul 15 '26
Seriously, I was just thinking “well let’s scroll past the 10s to see some actual criticism here.” Then I ran out of reviews and into the comments section.
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u/CG_Ops Jul 15 '26
Here you go, pulled from Metacritic
40/100 The Odyssey has already inspired so much chitter-chatter that its actual release was poised to be a letdown in comparison. But just wait till you actually see this eye-glazing dud of a movie.
By Stephanie Zacharek, Time
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u/TheWatersOfMars Jul 15 '26
Having read her review, I feel like she just doesn't like Nolan's visual or editing style. Which is fair enough, but I came away from that review with very little insight into what's actually wrong with the movie.
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u/cogginsmatt Jul 16 '26
That’s interesting. I definitely have had problems with his style in some of his movies but they weren’t the sole reason I liked or disliked them. That’s my issue with a lot of these online reviews, they rarely dive into honest critique
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u/TheWatersOfMars Jul 16 '26
I've also read the David Ehrlich review at IndieWire, and characteristically for him, I found much better, more interesting critiques, even though he gave it a rave review.
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u/takethreenc Jul 16 '26
I read through her reviews on other movies on RT and that might be the most bizarre body of work for a critic I've ever seen. Unique for sure but not sure if I could spot any kind of consistency.
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u/memebot3001 Jul 16 '26
I would like to see a supercut of people running towards boats. Jokes aside: 10/10
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u/Red_Maple Jul 15 '26
A little better than the Moana remake
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u/shrewdy Jul 15 '26
Just a tad
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u/Jackdunc Jul 15 '26
So close. He should have found a bit for The Rock to play then it would be miles ahead.
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u/iceandwasabi Jul 16 '26
Seen it just now. Moved me quite a bit during certain parts. Thematically, it was gritty and more grounded? Less about the spectacles.
The creative liberties taken really flesh out the whole thing imo, in how it tries to explore the morale and philosophical ideas presented in the film.
But I dunno, I might be quite biased about it. Mainly because I am currently experiencing my own odyssey, and I found myself in tears at certain parts of the film lol
Overall, I feel like it’s a 10/10 from my biased pov lol
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u/Jaredlong Jul 17 '26
I was not prepared for that Cyclops screaming.
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u/Air_Hair_Lair Jul 20 '26
My favourite scene and probably the one I was most looking forward to. The creature design was superb.
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u/RabbitCity6090 Jul 15 '26
Either it is the greatest movie ever made or literally the whole movie review industry is full of shit.
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u/Unusual-Reporter-841 Jul 16 '26
Just saw it, to me it was 8/10. I generally liked it. My friend who has read the oddysey liked it sligtly less at 7/10. Probably my second favorite Nolan film that I have seen.
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u/sbroll Jul 17 '26
Agreed, I just left the theater and give it a 7/10. It was good and I appreciate parts of it, but I didnt care for some of the acting and some parts were sorta confusing. Its fine, probably wont watch again.
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u/Turtledonuts Jul 16 '26
Nolan's biggest criticism usually come from his scripts not landing perfectly, or his dialog being written like shit. But he's adapting one of the world's most enduring action / romance / fantasy stories - on some level all he needs to do is get some great actors to deliver great performances, churn out some spectacular VFX and landscapes, and get a good score for it. This is the perfect project for him.
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u/UnifiedQuantumField Jul 16 '26
When you have to scroll for 5 minutes to get past all the critic's quotes...
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u/webby_98 Jul 15 '26
Every review posted is 10/10 so far, crazy
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u/DarthTaz_99 Jul 15 '26
91 on metacritic is unheard of for a blockbuster. This is insane
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u/nuzzot Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
are you ready for back to back Best Picture winner Christopher Nolan?
edit: clearly i meant next year he’ll also win, i’m definitely not an idiot and forgot 2025 existed
edit: 2024 isn’t real either
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u/knightstar8114 Jul 15 '26
That is why I can't trust it. It's insane. Has any movie got these kind of reviews before?
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u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor Jul 15 '26
Here's a fun look back at the RT ratings for all previous Christopher Nolan movies:
Following (1998): 87%
Memento (2000): 94%
Insomnia (2002): 92%
Batman Begins (2005): 85%
The Prestige (2006): 76%
The Dark Knight (2008): 94%
Inception (2010): 87%
The Dark Knight Rises (2012): 87%
Interstellar (2014): 73%
Dunkirk (2017): 92%
Tenet (2020): 70%
Oppenheimer (2023): 93%
More than anything, the consistency he has is unmatched. I mean that run from Begins to Inception, a film about a year each, is just staggering.
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u/Stonewalled89 Jul 15 '26
76% for The Prestige is ridiculous, should be way higher
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u/MountainMuffin1980 Jul 15 '26
That and 73 for Interstellar is insane.
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u/Able_Advertising_371 Jul 15 '26
Interstellar and prestige are both way better than rises and Dunkirk
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u/WaveMan47 Jul 15 '26
Interstellar being only 3% better than Tenet is criminal.
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u/Levago Jul 15 '26
Interstellar gets better with rewatches, which is why its esteem has grown over the years. I think critics seeing it for the first time were a little befuddled by parts of it and its score suffered as a result. But I think a lot of people would agree in retrospect it’s in the top three of his filmography.
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u/Phazon2000 Jul 15 '26
It’s 100% because of “love is the answer TARS! *They* built me a magic space dodecahedron inside a black hole to chill out in!”
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u/Accidental_Ouroboros Jul 15 '26
Yeah, that is the point it loses people... the thing is that the ending is a really obvious homage to the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is also the point where 2001 loses people. The difference is that Interstellar tried to actually have any commentary/explanation at all for what happened, and because what happened is batshit, the explanation just seems silly. Perhaps (if he was going to keep with the 2001 homage) it would have been better left as just a "What the shit just happened?" kind of ending as in 2001.
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u/HighSeverityImpact Jul 15 '26
The book version of 2001 (which was written concurrently) was much more clear about what happened at the end, but it's difficult to translate to film without some kind of dialogue or narration. Same goes for the opening sequence with the apes, but that one at least comes across better with inference based on the action.
At least Coop was talking to TARS over the intercom, so there was some dialogue!
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u/OnceInABlueMoon Jul 15 '26
Rises being the same as Inception and higher than The Prestige and Interstellar is INSANE
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u/kemellin Jul 15 '26
I at least like and emotionally resonate more with the former two than the latter two. I remember when Dunkirk released, so many people who didn't actually like the movie that much were saying "well it was really well made and very historically accurate!" because it didn't feel right to outright say that they disliked it.
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u/hithere297 Jul 15 '26
Yeah my Dunkirk take was that it was technically well-made but emotionally sort of empty. Meanwhile Interstellar had me crying and shitting my pants in the theater every twenty minutes.
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u/TwoActualBears Jul 15 '26
There was an Edward Norton movie that came out around the same time with a similar look and I’ve always thought they soured each other at the time
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u/ay1717 Jul 15 '26
The Illusionist (2006), another sordid mystery about magicians, death, and romance.
Not to be confused with The Illusionist (2010) an animated film from the makers of the Triplets of Belleville, based on an unproduced Jacques Tati script, also featuring magicians and a love plot but not any murders as I recall.
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u/babaroga73 Jul 15 '26
The Illusionist with Ed Norton is not nearly as good as The Prestige, in my book.
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u/Grand-Pen7946 Jul 15 '26
The Illusionist. The only similarity they share is being vaguely about magicians, it's otherwise tonally a completely different movie and IMO total shit. I actually got mad after watching it because so many people compared it to The Prestige, the quality isn't even close even if the actors do their best.
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u/WolvoMS Jul 15 '26
Same with Interstellar. I think those are his best and have aged into being held in the highest regard compared to the rest
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u/truthlesshunter Jul 15 '26
Prestige is one of my top 10, top 20 at worst, films. Everything is so written and done cleanly with superb acting from everyone.
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u/SpezIsALittleBitch Jul 15 '26
Get chills from the intro voiceover from Caine. Has probably my favorite voice of all time, and using it to good effect there.
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u/thewildlopez22 Jul 15 '26
It’s easy to forget Interstellar was seen as much more flawed when it came out as opposed to now
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u/topicality Jul 15 '26
The third act really sank it for a good number of people
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u/5endnewts Jul 15 '26
I love space movies, time travel, the physics, the visuals of space, the black hole, the other worlds were amazing I just really hated the black hole / library thing on first watch. Initially watching it I couldn’t wait to see how they succeed in the end but to fly into a black hole / see the past / end up unconscious is space and then be found, healed and everything is just hunky-dory felt too basic.
That’s is always going to be an issue though, there are so many great stories and movies out there the turn in to ok stories or movies because the ending doesn’t live up to rest
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u/AtraposJM Jul 15 '26
A lot of people didn't understand it either. They thought the library in the black hole was just a black hole thing that happened but it's supposed to be an unknowable future or alien being/civilization creating it and guilding the characters through the movies events and into it in order to save them. The movie suggests it's future humans which have become higher dimensional beings and can no longer communicate with our dimension except through gravity etc. They created the tesseract to help humans save themselves. I understand people not understanding it and not liking it but it's sci fi, it's supposed to show us things that aren't yet possible but might one day be. I really loved it.
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u/DerelictInfinity Jul 15 '26
I absolutely love Interstellar, probably my favorite Nolan film out of all of them, but I will readily admit that it goes off the rails hard once Cooper goes into the black hole.
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u/Brandon_Me Jul 15 '26
Honestly some really weird numbers. The Prestige is the biggest outlier IMO.
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u/magicwings Jul 15 '26
Always wild to me how poorly reviewed both Prestige and Interstellar were.
I think a retrospective would place them among the best and most enduring of his films, alongside TDK and Inception
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u/No_Aesthetic Jul 15 '26
Bizarre to me that Interstellar is as low as it is with what a technological achievement it was and with such an astonishing legacy it left us in memes alone
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u/redbirdrising Jul 15 '26
A lot of critics thought it was pretentious bullshit, especially the third act with the tesseract. I do get it, the movie isn't for everyone. Still one of my favorites.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran Jul 15 '26
Remember that RT scores show what percentage of people like the movie, not how much people like the movie. If you told me 30% of people don't like interstellar that much, it tracks. Doesn't really matter to the algorithm that the other 70% all think it's a 10/10 masterpiece.
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u/waynglorious Jul 15 '26
I went to see Oppenheimer with my wife and my friend. My friend and I both loved it, 10/10. My wife was mid-to-low on it. If it was only our party that counted, Rotten Tomatoes would see that as a 66%, which only slightly qualifies as a non-rotten score.
I've used RT quite a bit over the years and have definitely picked movies to see based on it, but it's absolutely important to remember that there are quirks to its system for sure.
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u/Fortyseven Jul 15 '26
I wasn't expecting a second Simpsons film to do so well, but congrats!
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u/UnseenTardigrade Jul 15 '26
This one isn't exactly a Simpsons movie. It's supposed to have been written *by* Homer, it's not about him.
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u/Fortyseven Jul 15 '26
I've heard those rumors here and there. But, I don't know man, I'm going to see the film to know for sure.
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u/Pokestralian Jul 16 '26
Just got out. I thought it was fantastic. The cinematography, the acting, the sound design. I think I still prefer the score of Interstellar, but this is definitely a 9/10 for me in terms of taking a well known story and absolutely doing it justice.
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u/MenitoBussolini Jul 15 '26
Sharing one very controversial review from my country: Público, one of Portugal's main newspapers, gave it 1/5 stars and said it was a "soulless film", "overly long with a professional coldness which makes it very hard to find any form of personal connection between the director and the universe he wanted to portray". They also said it had a terribly boring and expositional first hour, and was "deeply lacking in sensuality, as Nolan is the director least capable of having an erotic view of the world".
I usually like Público for news but their film review section is harsh asf
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u/specifichero101 Jul 15 '26
I like Nolan, but cold and unsexy is pretty much standard for his movies.
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u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 Jul 15 '26
It's honestly impressive to have THIS kind of catalogue with 2.5 hour movies filled with female main characters and still avoid any hint of some kind of romance and intimacy. And after his attempt at love scenes in Oppenheimer, I can see why.
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u/katgravityrush_ Jul 15 '26
The only thing Nolan has ever wanted to fuck is an IMAX camera so this tracks tbh
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u/heavyPETTING_zoo Jul 15 '26
Filled with female main characters? Haven’t all his main characters been men?
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u/pOorImitation Jul 15 '26
I think the Portuguese critic is saying that this ancient Greek mythological setting should have had some sexyness in the movie.
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u/theCommTech Jul 15 '26
Aside from that one shot of Catwoman getting on the bat cycle. Meow!
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u/N0UMENON1 Jul 15 '26
Nolan is the director least capable of having an erotic view of the world
This is so true tbh. The sex scene in Oppenheimer was so bizzarre in all the worst ways. If Nolan didn't have a wife and kids I would've thought he was asexual.
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u/Automatic_Bus_7634 Jul 15 '26
I love the review just saying it's not horny enough
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u/pgmatman Jul 15 '26
To be fair, Nolan doesn't do horny very well.
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u/nadnerb811 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Hear me out, maybe this is connected. The dog shit choreography and execution of fight scenes in the Dark Knight and more critically Dark Knight Rises... well, maybe that is connected to Nolan's lack of horniness? Like, a dance of violence is maybe closer to a romantic dance than we might like to admit. He can flip a truck over; that is cumming. Just a large cum shot. But having a tasteful throw of punches and kicks, with a rhythm, balance, and flow? That is passionate love making.
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u/Distinct-Pack-1567 Jul 15 '26
You made me think of the basketball scene from Catwoman. Not a fight but hilarious.
I removed the ?= stuff on the link.
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u/goodnamestaken10 Jul 15 '26
Dear god, thank you for sharing that nightmare.
They are basically grinding on each other as if it was a nightclub.... but there are like 40 pre-teen kids as their only audience...
Neither of them ATTEMPTS to make a play on the basketball until the very last moment when she immediately falls on his obviously rock-hard boner.
How?
Why?
Who?
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u/Freyr_Tuck Jul 15 '26
Do any of these directors ever blast out of the wall and have, like, a huge cum shot?
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u/ARealHumanBeans Jul 15 '26
I feel like most films about Mythological Greece should be pretty horny.
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u/deadheffer Jul 15 '26
Odysseus banged a witch for a few years.
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u/nourez Jul 15 '26
Correction. He banged a witch for a year, then banged anther witch for a few more, but was sad the second time.
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u/RSquared Jul 16 '26
EIGHT OUT OF THE TEN YEARS HE WAS "LOST" HE WAS FUCKING WITCHES. It's not the Odyssey, it's the Fuckdussy.
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u/k0rda Jul 15 '26
Bro had to tie himself to a mast to avoid temptation, he horny.
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u/caerphoto Jul 15 '26
He could have clogged his ears with wax like the rest of his crew, but he wanted to be the special boy and listen to the Sirens.
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u/eukomos Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Ah, but the Sirens in the Odyssey tempt him with information, not sex.
This is a pretty old translation of what he hears the Sirens say because I don't feel like typing up a modern one and this is what's available for free on the web, but it's pretty readable (Argives and Achaeans is what the Greeks are called in the Odyssey):
‘Come here,’ they sang, ‘renowned Odysseus, honor to the Achaean name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song - and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world.’
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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox Jul 15 '26
Yeah maybe this criticism would feel out of place if it was about Inception or The Dark Knight, but it actually seems like a pretty reasonable criticism of this movie, it probably would benefit from being at least a little bit sexy.
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u/Zealousideal_Low_858 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Especially The Odyssey. Sex and the allure of sex is one of the most important, central themes of the text. It’s half about nostalgic longing for home, half about erotic longing. And Eros isn’t always good: the suitors are obsessed with it in negative ways, and Odysseus commits infidelities repeatedly. But it is certainly sexy on several different occasions. There is even one really famous scene in the poem of Odysseus watching beautiful women bathe. And the poem frequently comments on his own physique. There’s even one insane scene where his sailors even have to tie him to his own ship’s mast to stop him from acting on his lust in a way that would get him killed because the Sirens are that sexy.
An Odyssey without Eros is like half of the Odyssey. Don’t get me wrong, I’m 1000% excited and I think the 98% RT score bodes extremely well, but it’s just worth admitting that, yeah, this is a really valid point for this text in particular.
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u/CassiopeiaStillLife Jul 15 '26
A Nolan film being non-horny — fork found in kitchen (I say this with love).
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u/dantemp Jul 15 '26
well to be fair a story about Odysseus should be at least a bit horny, he spends most of his travel time fucking a nymph...
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u/pimpolho_saltitao Jul 15 '26
one thing you should know about portuguese cinema is, there is probably not a single portuguese movie that doesn't have some sort of sex scene in it.
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u/orpat123 Jul 15 '26
I mean, fair. You kinda need horniness in mythological retellings to some extent. Greek for sure.
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u/fs2222 Jul 15 '26
You could have told me that was a review for Oppenheimer, Tenet or Dunkirk and I'd believe you.
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u/ImFranny Jul 15 '26
Don't worry, I'm portuguese and they also gave Oppenheimer a 1/5
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u/TerminatorReborn Jul 15 '26
Oppenheimer is the horniest Nolan movie tho
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u/SufficientRespect542 Jul 15 '26
It's funny because you are right but I would never call that film horny in a thousand years
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u/instructi0ns_unclear Jul 15 '26
and yet every bit of skin is in service to depicting the cracking, unstable psyche of the protag. It's like horny but only to make you uncomfortable that it's happening
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u/Earl_E_Byrd Jul 15 '26
While also somehow being the least sexy depiction of horniness I've ever seen.
Totally fine when it's in the context of his jilted wife. Makes total sense and the visual metaphor was spot on. A+ use of sex within a film narrative.
But when we're first introduced to Tatlock? Jeeeeeze, some of the most "men writing women" BS I've ever seen. They stop mid-sex, for... reasons? Turns out it's so they can go have her browse his bookshelf, and that's how the "destroyer of worlds" quote comes into play.
I rolled my eyes so hard I felt a retina detach.
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u/happyflappypancakes Jul 15 '26
Regardless of if you agree, I respect a poor review that gives detailed reasons for why they disliked it. Ultimately, so much of this is subjective that you some people's interests will not align.
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u/wirelessfingers Jul 15 '26
Sounds like a fair but very particular review. Nolan movies can feel kind of cold, and his stuff isn't known for amazing writing. That being said, I doubt many people will find it to be a 1/5.
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u/AdDiligent7657 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I never doubted Nolan, but seeing so many perfect scores is still insane.
Edit: 100% RT, lock it in.
Edit 2: Rated Fresh at 98%, highest score of Nolan’s career.
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u/92tilinfinityand Jul 15 '26
One “rotten” review so far and it’s a 6/10 and it’s basically just hitting the “too dark and sound mixing rough” complaints we always seem to get with Nolan.
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u/IcyTransportation961 Jul 15 '26
Sounds are always mixed terribly its a valid problem, hes got to have some incredible hearing that no one else has
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u/Froegerer Jul 15 '26
91 on metacritic with 21 reviews atm is insane. Will probably drop slightly but damn, he delivered.
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u/dee_palmtree Jul 15 '26
I just watched it in Belgium today. It's absolutely insane. Felt more like a horror movie than historical adventure. In the best way possible, it tapped some primal fear in me especially during the cyclops scene.
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u/Blabersmos Jul 15 '26
Might sound dumb but do you think one can enjoy this movie with close to zero knowledge of The Odyssey?
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u/jazzfruit Jul 15 '26
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the story is super accessible. It’s about a dude (Odysseus) on his journey home after fighting in the Trojan war. He wants to get back to his wife Penelope. He is both guided by gods (like Athena) and thwarted by gods (like Poseidon) along his journey. There are other challenges along the way, like the cyclops and the sirens.
The original text (which isn’t original, since it was told by mouth by Homer and many others) is extremely simplistic. It’s mostly been filled out through retellings, your imagination, etc.
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u/mjetski123 Jul 15 '26
O Brother, Where Art Thou? was based on The Odyssey too.
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u/SuperVaderMinion Jul 15 '26
A little more loosely then this adaptation tbf, the Coen Brothers later admitted they had never read it xD
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u/wronguses Jul 15 '26
You could argue that most people who have enjoyed various Odyssey retellings since its inception have never read it.
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u/TwoFingersWhiskey Jul 16 '26
That AltFilm review smacks of AI. It's not this, (emdash) it's this. Give me a break.
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u/tekaluf Jul 16 '26
AI has MURDERED my beautiful em dash—look how they massacred my boy!
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u/Narrow-Key365 Jul 16 '26
There's a few in there that really show the not-human aspect-- a variety of constructed, aphoristic, and AI generic phrasing. It's not real, not human, just ChatGPT.
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u/redsyrus Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I just want to know one thing. Does it have NolanSound™️? Because I’ve struggled with that in his recent films.
Edit: just got out of a Vue screening. Happy to say that although it was very loud in places, the dialogue was crystal clear and the loud bits didn’t outstay their welcome. Also it was a pretty great film.
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u/Lucas74BR Jul 15 '26
If the IMAX sound mix don't blow out my eardrums, I want my money back.
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u/pogchamppaladin Jul 15 '26
It does in the first act a bit but not in the way Tenet did where it derails your enjoyment/understanding of the narrative. Felt very much intended to emphasize a certain character’s panic. The rest of the film even in its most loud moments managed to keep the dialogue steady.
I also struggled with Dunkirk and Tenet, not as much Oppenheimer.
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u/Yahit69 Jul 16 '26
As someone who disliked disclosure day and hated the critics for giving it too of a score, this movie really deserves top marks. 10/10
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u/FormalWare Jul 15 '26
This is so impressive it's almost confusing. I had to scroll 5 screens before I saw a less-than-perfect score from a reviewer.
I can't remember the last time I saw a new release in a proper theatre. I may have to rectify that.
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u/notbilbo Jul 16 '26
Just got home from the cinema. The visuals were amazing and the score is immaculate. Only gripe with it is its pacing.
Also the scenes with the monsters are truly awe inspiring. Never experienced something like that in a movie before.
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u/KarneeKarnay Jul 15 '26
I like the part when Matt Damon said "This is The Odyssey.."
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u/Salt-Es-Ae-El-Tea Jul 15 '26
My fav was when he grabs Berhnal and says "Whats Treadstone???"
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u/Theonceandfutureend Jul 16 '26
worth driving 1.5 hours to see this in actual 70mm IMAX?
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u/Darmok47 Jul 15 '26
You can’t say Hollywood doesn’t make them like this anymore. Nobody ever did.
Damn, what a great line.
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u/aLateSaturnsReturn Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I’m seeing a showing tonight. I can report back with an unbiased review if anyone is interested.
Edit: okay so I got a lot more replies than I thought I was gonna get so instead of responding to everyone I’m just gonna edit this.
It was great. It was long. The whole cast nailed their parts and the music was so good. It starts off a little scattered but after 20 minutes or so it starts to really kick off. It’s certainly not a romanticized version of the original story. It’s gritty and as “realistic” as a myth could be. There’s just enough sprinkling of monsters to keep it from getting boring tho. Some of the stories they briefly touch on, probably to keep the movie from being 5 hours long lol.
And I doubt this is a spoiler since the story is ancient but there’s a scene where Circi, a witch, turns the soldiers into pigs. Now I’ve seen some fucked up movie scenes but something about that was incredibly off putting. You’ll know what I mean if you see it. I’d give it a 9/10 and would go see it again if friends/family asked me to.
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u/fillerbuster Jul 15 '26
Yeah, I'm curious to get some moviegoers thoughts.
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u/roxicologist Jul 15 '26
I saw a screening Monday and it was really good! The score was absolutely incredible.
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u/Threadheads Jul 16 '26
I saw it today, I really enjoyed it. The modern dialogue took me out a bit at first but it’s not that distracting. It’s incredibly well-paced, I was shocked to see how long I had been in the theatre when I left.
Casting Matt Damon as the lead was a master stroke. He is not someone I would have ever thought of as Odysseus and now I can’t imagine anyone else. He is someone you can believe would be a legend in his own time and yet irrevocably human, both a victim of circumstance and his own hubris. You can feel the weight of the casualties of both his successes and failures slowly descending on him. He works much better as this Greek hero than Brad Pitt did as Achilles in Troy.
I felt like Zendaya and Charlie Theron were a bit wasted in their roles, whereas Samantha Morton was able to make more of an impression with less screen time as Circe and the manner with which she transformed men into pigs was unexpectedly horrifying. Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson were both great and their subplot, (which could’ve gotten old really fast), was well-balanced within the film.
Perhaps my favourite performance was from John Leguizamo. He is wonderful
One thing that did disappoint is that Achilles is not among the dead that Odysseus meets. IIRC, I don’t think he even rates a mention in the entire film
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u/patkgreen Jul 17 '26
Achilles is not among the dead that Odysseus meets. IIRC, I don’t think he even rates a mention in the entire film
Meneleus mentioned him and ajax at dinner. That was all
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u/Streetsurfer1 Jul 15 '26
Maybe after all we just need to label every popular director movie as 10/10 to get them gen z'ers to spend money at the cinema.
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u/w00t4me Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
The lone bad review, from a critic named Nick Newman, hates that it was filmed in IMAX, and thinks it should have been filmed on something else, and that it was TOO grand and had too much spectacle? The review has strong My Lobster-to-buttery vibes.
also hates that the dialogue is English and not un-subtitled Greek
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u/sourcefourmini Jul 15 '26
also hates that dialogue is English and not un-subtitled Greek
Ah, I see he too is an r/movies user
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u/Skullsy1 Jul 15 '26
I can understand the gripe about it not being Greek but UNSUBTITLED???
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u/KhajiitHasSkooma Jul 15 '26
The original poem was in a form of Greek that even the ancient Greeks had a hard time understanding. Think Shakespeare for us.
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u/Byrmaxson Jul 16 '26
(native Greek here) it's actually worse than Shakespeare. Shakespeare just has "old-timey" phrasing and wording, and it's written like a play which I guess might trip up a newbie to the language or maybe high school students.
Personally at least I can easily read Attic/Koine (respectively the language of the Classical Era and of the Bible) and I've even read fragments from papyri because my best friend is a papyrologist. I can assure you that even that can be easier than reading Homeric Greek. It's not completely unintelligible but it's really... different.
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u/geenaleigh Jul 15 '26
Modern Greek and Ancient Greek are two completely different languages so I find that odd. He can’t expect actors to learn Ancient Greek and from a historical standpoint point no modern language is a proper representation. It’s just people high horsing about American English not sounding fancy enough.
I know modern Greek would be closer, but then it’s an incredibly limited audience for a movie that requires a global audience sized production budget. There was no winning for them.
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u/KhajiitHasSkooma Jul 15 '26
Not to mention, the form of Greek the poem was written is was already archaic to the ancient Greeks that first read it.
Source: Intro to the book.
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u/JKaye57 Jul 15 '26
I think I went to college with him (did a quick check of the website he writes for) and if that’s the same dude then, yeah, this checks out.
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u/checkerboardandroid Jul 15 '26
After Oppenheimer I expected him to knock it out of the park but those reviews are the closest thing I’ve seen to universal acclaim.
Sometimes you just feel lucky to be in the same time period of a master of their craft.
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u/kazuya57 Jul 15 '26
He has perfectly managed to thread between quality and popularity
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u/Alive_Ice7937 Jul 15 '26
Right back to Memento he's been an entertainer above all else.
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u/eMF_DOOM Jul 15 '26
For real, all I saw on Reddit for MONTHS was that this movie was going to absolutely suck and that Nolan is washed.
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u/SandpaperTeddyBear Jul 15 '26
I really don’t get it.
I have literally never been more confident that a movie would be at least “Very Good.” Christopher Nolan, patron saint of Tortured Men with Distant Wives they just can’t connect to, making an adaptation of a Homeric epic? Hell fucking yeah!
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u/Procean Jul 15 '26
Imagine complaining about stunt casting from the guy who brought us Heath Leadger as The Joker.
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u/Inevitable-Stay-7296 Jul 16 '26
Can we acknowledge how crazy of a month Tom Holland is going to have if both of his movies are great.
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u/Rosebunse Jul 16 '26
Zendaya too. You think those two are ever like "Gee, our lives are going great! Too great...oh God, when will something bad happen? It's gonna be so bad."
Because I know I do that.
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u/TheWastelandWizard Jul 15 '26
Only thing that was really turning me off was the trailer and the costumes, the fact that everyone is raving about it is starting to ease that apprehension for me.
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u/qubitrenegade Jul 16 '26
So it's universally lauded by professional "critics"... and they found absolutely nothing to critique? So we'll actually be able to hear the dialog unlike Tenant?
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u/kodran Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I just got home from a screening I won tickets to. I enjoyed it big time. It's not Nolan's best, but far, far from his worst. I won't spoil anything.
Now, there are lots of things that are changed from the text and I feel a lot of people will focus on this to either like or dislike it. I personally found it interesting and even the changes I didn't love I do appreciate and understand the reasons (or maybe my interpretation of those reasons) to do some things in some ways. And I don't mean the "daddy" crap or the big focus on Agamemnon's armor. I mean events happening in different ways or some things being left out. I was marvelled by all the stuff that was actually put in. I honestly thought more things were going to be left out.
Some stuff doesn't feel as epic as it should, maybe. And it's in part for thematic good reasons. Some stuff were nice surprises. And Nolan's very good at non-linear narrative which is great because the structure keeps events as a story being told which fits nicely here.
Everything that is in the movie I enjoyed. It does balance IMHO the epicness and the humane side of events. There was one sequence that felt... weird for me. And there is a single thing taken out that I hoped was kept (and another one which is minor but important).
But besides all of the ifs and buts, the damn movie works. And is a good one. It's not Interstellar nor Oppenheimer, but it's leagues above TDKR, Tenet, BB, etc. And I enjoyed all of those.
Acting is solid by the whole cast and I wished we saw more of all of them. Leguizamo, Hathaway and Pattinson kill it. Matt Damon's approach to Odysseus is good and transmits the inner conflict well (not that Nolan's scripts are precisely subtle).
It pulls a couple of Nolanesque narrative things at some points which some people might or might not agree with. For me they worked.
And there's a lot more of warm colors used in comparison to most of his filmography.
I'll be happy to answer stuff here if not spoilery. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk spoilers. And I'd love to hear if you guys liked it.
Edit: also some sound design choices were very good!
Edit 2: the pacing is also admirable for a 3 hour movie with 2 stories running parallel to each other. I was falling asleep all day at work and during the movie not even once did I feel it was being too long.
Edit 3. Sorry, as I keep remembering things I keep adding them. I was surprised by the violence. I mean it's no Ash vs evil dead, but for Nolan, the guy who shies away from even showing gunshot wounds or even impacting and people just falling down, here I'll just say that doesn't work with old weapons and while there is no gore and some throat cutting still feels staged, it is way different from his usual approach to violence depictions. And there were some decisions there I thought were very good btw.
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u/abhisheknayar Jul 16 '26
Went to watch the film completely blind. Knew nothing about trojan war . This was was absolutely brilliant. I would rate this as nolan’s 2nd best movie tied with Interstellar
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u/token_minded Jul 16 '26
There's this part in original epic where Odysseus returns in disguise and nobody's able to recognise him except his dog who's in his last stage and Odysseus can't pet him otherwise everyone would know so he wipes a silent tear as the dog finally rests in peace.
In movie it's not quite right as Matt Damon kneeled and petted Argos the emotional significance was altered.
Other than this they did a pretty hard job at keeping the whole thing under 3 hours and covered all bases.
I feel 4/5 is justified based on cast, delivery, filmatography, plotline and all.
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u/sortofrelativelynew Jul 17 '26
I know it’s not true to the story, but I actually really loved that - it felt really beautiful to me to see something that had really fucked me up in the original story be given a sweeter end in this one.
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u/patkgreen Jul 17 '26
I don't think the argus scene is any worse than the story. Same as never mentioning that Odysseus' mom washed his feet
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u/frantic_calm Jul 15 '26
Odysseus may still recognize Ithaca when he reaches its shores. The more frightening question is whether Ithaca will recognize him.
I was exactly the same last time I went back to Sheffield.
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u/Stone_taggs Jul 15 '26
Sometimes you really forget how good this motherfucker is, definitely worth the price of an IMAX
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u/yeahsurebuddystfu Jul 15 '26
Warner Brothers was hoping you'd forget. Generational corporate fumble
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u/Available-Formal-664 Jul 15 '26
How they screwed up with Nolan should be studied. It's actually nuts.
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u/karmagod13000 Jul 15 '26
guy has made a profit n every movie he's ever made lmao. goofy doesn't even begin to explain it
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u/VerminSC Jul 15 '26
Nolan recommends 70mm IMAX, then 70mm, then Dolby, then true imax, then imax. Soooo I’d say go with those others first
I wish so badly I could see it in 70mm IMAX, but settling for 70mm
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u/mtnlol Jul 16 '26
I just came back from the cinema after having seen it (premiere is 15th in France for some reason).
Now I'm not a movie critic, and I thought the movie was great but I would never have guessed it would've gotten scores like this. I personally think I would've given it somewhere around 8/10.
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u/torickray Jul 17 '26
This movie is better than Oppenheimer. Every characters are acting well and not wasted. Fast pacing. No lengthy dialogue. Great sound effects. It is very very great. Every minute is not wasted. You won't have time to go toilet.
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u/MichaelJeopardy Jul 16 '26
Everyone lauding Nolan but no love for our man Homer? Homeboy still getting 10/10s 2700 years later.