Christopher Nolan’s "The Odyssey"
Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald
Parts of this movie are overwhelming, and that’s not just a comment on the action scenes.
I was fortunate to see it on a large IMAX screen with an excellent sound system. Throughout I was impressed by everything including lighting choices, sound design, and Ludwig Göransson’s music.
For me the most impressive performance was Samantha Morton as Circe, a terrifying sequence laden with anger and sexual politics as Matt Damon’s Odysseus faces rescuing his men whom Circe has turned into pigs. Another standout performance is Bill Irwin as Polyphemus, last seen by me as the robot TARS in Nolan’s Interstellar.
But I must hand it to Matt Damon as Odysseus. He ably communicates Odysseus’ ambivalence about his critical role in the Trojan War as well as his emotional and conflicting feelings about returning home. Damon will have a hard time topping this.
If I did have some disappointment, it was with the final climactic fight where Odysseus battles Penelope’s suitors. It is extraordinarily well choreographed, but the fluidity of the action, coupled with rapid action-oriented editing, generated some difficult to follow murky sequences, despite the high IMAX-supplied image definition.
Given photographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s impeccable credentials (e.g., Interstellar, Ad Astra, Nope), I wonder if some of this “murkiness” was related to the size and weight of Nolan’s new IMAX camera. The film does contain some impressive tracking shots (e.g., the crew scrambling down from Polyphemus’ cave); perhaps the size and weight of the camera restricted its movements relative to the “swooping” close-quarters action shots possible using lighter and more nimble digital cameras.
Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald
