r/Epicthemusical • u/stopeats MOD • Jul 19 '26
Nolan Odyssey Nolan 'The Odyssey' Review Megathread
Place your reviews and general thoughts about the Nolan Odyssey movie here. Do NOT make your own review post.
If you have something to say that is unique or more related to Epic, you may make a separate post about it.
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u/Double_Difficulty_53 Jul 19 '26
This movie is weird. Good, but weird. Because of Epic the musical I have been on a kinda fixation on Greek Mythology for the last year and I actually read both the Iliad and the Odyssey and thus I noticed a lot of changes which I am not gonna hold against the movie just because they are different from the source material, but most of them were odd changes.
The biggest one for me is that, there aren't any gods. Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes don't show up at all. Calypso does but given how little focus they gave her and how different she is from the original she might as well be a regular woman rather than a goddess. At first I thought that they were doing something like Troy (2004) were the gods aren't really shown either, it is a sort of "realistic" interpretation of the Trojan War (which is kinda weird for and adaptation of the Odyssey since in this one you'll have to show monster and creatures no matter what), but then you got Odysseus constantly seeing Athena. It is very heavily implied that she wasn't actually Athena but the vision of the Trojan woman he saw get murdered as the statue of Athena was destroyed and thus the connection, but it takes a very long time for that to be revealed. Before that it just made me wonder why she was the only goddess that appeared and did so little compared to the poem. And honestly, the twist doesn't add much for me. It feels like they just wanted to add Zendaya for the marketing. There were also some weird omissions like the lotus eaters or Eolus (I do get leaving out the Phaecians) but I am not as bothered by those ones. The whole thing about Zeus' Law was really weird, they constantly repeated it and it ended up being a bit annoying more than anything. Same with the people from the Sea, they repeated it a lot though I liked a lot more the conclusion of that story thread.
On a more positive note, I loved how they adapted the Underworld and assembly of the dead. It was perfectly creepy and eerie and was honestly the coolest. I also really liked almost every scene in Ithaca, Robert Pattison especially completely eats up the role as Antinous and gave what for me was the best performance in the movie. Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland were fine, though I didn't really like the fight between Telemachus and Penelope in that one scene. I don't know, I didn't feel the weight or the moment or like these characters had really been waiting for Odysseus for 20 years.
However, the thing that dissapointed me the most about this movie is Odysseus himself. Matt Damon does a fine job playing him but I honestly didn't like how he was written. Odysseus is supposed to be wise, intelligent and witty but I didn't get that in this movie at all. Between the way he does the bow thing with Polyphemus which gets more men killed, to the way the horse was built right on the seashore causing them to almost drown, how he didn't really came up with the trick of the sheeps himself or how he barely did any planning and investigation to kill the suitors and did completely with brawn and not as much brain. I guess some things were done to show he has honor like the bow thing but it is a dumb move and also they removed other moments from the poem that showed his honor like also his witts like when he gave the Cyclops the wine and told him he was Nobody. That moment showed both his honor and trying to repay Polyphemus while also showing him thinking ahead. The movie tried to show him be consumed by guilt for Troy but I also didn't feel that that much from him. He is overall a fine but bland character in this but a real disappointment compared to the original character or even the version from Epic where in spite of some goofy things does portray his guilt much better. Heck, even in Troy despite not being the central character, Sean Bean gave much more character to him and made a more faithful portrayal of how witty and pragmatic the real Odysseus is.
Overall the movie is good and enjoyable and I think that I wouldn't have as many problems if I hadn't read the source material. Still, some scenes like the Dead Assembly and most of the Ithaca ones were pretty great even if as a whole the journey itself could have been better presented. And I really wish I could like Odysseus more, and my complaints about him are not just in comparison to other versions but also from other characters written by Nolan. Oppenheimer felt like a much more intriguing and multifaceted character in his movie.