The Odyssey has been hailed by critics across the board and is officially Christopher Nolan‘s best-reviewed film of his career.
- Read More: ‘The Odyssey’ review: cinema may have peaked with Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster epic
The director’s new movie, which is released in cinemas on Friday (July 17), is an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, with Matt Damon starring as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who embarks on a treacherous journey home after the Trojan War.
It also stars Tom Holland as his son Telemachus and Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope, alongside Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Samantha Morton and Mia Goth.
Critics have hailed the film with Variety‘s Guy Lodge describing it as “a genuinely grand, gutsy vision”.
He added: “The Odyssey thrills generously for the bulk of its near three-hour running time. Every few minutes, it seems, it throws at its audience another mighty setpiece that, in almost any other summer studio spectacle, would be a climactic standout.”
The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw awarded The Odyssey five stars and said it was a film with “thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair.”
He added: “There are some broad-brush moments in the dialogue, yes, but even these are applied with a muscular flourish.”
NME’s Paul Bradshaw also awarded the blockbuster five stars, writing “cinema may have peaked with Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster epic” adding that “this mind-boggling adventure should be seen on the big screen”.
The Odyssey is “the definition of epic”, says Empire‘s John Nugent, in another five-star review.
“The scale and scope here is, frankly, jaw-detaching,” he said. “It is filmmaking at a magnitude few modern directors could ever realistically imagine, demand, or execute.
The Independent‘s Clarisse Loughrey also said: “Nolan’s stamp is all over the film – this is intellectual, brutalist, muscular Hollywood fare – yet it never wavers in its commitment to, and comprehension of, its source text. There’s not a single decision here that’s been thoughtlessly made, nor that I imagine Nolan himself couldn’t easily defend.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney cautioned that the film was somewhat “uneven”, but praised the ensemble cast.
“Damon is superb, going to dark places seldom if ever explored in his previous roles,” he added. “Hathaway is a model of steely self-possession masking vulnerability; Pattinson bites into his character’s villainy with gusto.”
Elsewhere, Deadline‘s Gregory Nussen, singled out Spider-Man star Tom Holland’s performance.
“His performance certainly seems tinged with the courageous naivety of Spider-Man, insisting on trying to influence those much more cunning and physically capable than he,” wrote Nussen. “Holland may be playing a child, but his performance is bursting with a newfound maturity. It is his strongest one to date.”
Confirming The Odyssey is Nolan’s best-reviewed film to date, it also received a massive 96% score from 198 reviews so far on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of his 2023 Oscar winning epic Oppenheimer (93%) and The Dark Knight (94%).
Elsewhere, Nolan responded to the backlash over some of the casting choices in The Odyssey this week, calling it “irrelevant”.
