My mixed feelings on Nolan’s The Odyssey

This year, so many banger movies have been released, including The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan. As a self-proclaimed movie lover, I saw it as soon as it came out and again a week later. During my first watch, I was hooked; I couldn’t stop telling people how good it was. However, on my second watch, I noticed a few things that irked me.

(Film still from The Odyssey)

What I liked

1. The practical effects.

I was shocked and impressed when I heard that the movie used minimal digital effects. I thought for sure that the giant cyclops was CGI. I think that all of these great practical effects really added to the movie. I think it helped the actors be able to act better. For example, in the cyclops scenes, the actors had a giant puppet to interact with; they weren’t looking at empty space. This made everything feel more real. I also really liked Circe’s pig transformation. The way we can really see hands pressing and molding the men’s flesh really adds to the body horror aspect. I still have no idea how they made the animatronics look so human. 

2. The cast.

The cast had a lot of big names in it. Matt Damon, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, to name a few. You can really tell they gave it their all for this movie. Anne Hathaway’s “sitting on the throne for 20 years” scene gave me literal chills. I think Robert Pattinson did the best. You could tell that he was really in character, but that he was also having fun with it. I was completely locked in on him in every scene that he was in. Overall, every actor was performing at their peak, and it really shows on film.

3. The score.

The score for this movie is different than other scores. Instead of using orchestral music like other movies, only Greek instruments were used. They had to do research on the instruments used during that time, and because many didn’t exist anymore, they had to recreate them. This gives the movie such a unique sound. I’ve seen many people talk about the sound that played when Odysseus plucked his bow, and I think that shows how much impact the score had on the movie. Personally, I couldn’t stop thinking about the siren song; it was so otherworldly.

What I didn’t like

1. The gods

To be honest, when I first saw The Odyssey, I didn’t know much about the original story, but I did know that during those times, Gods had a major influence. That's why I didn’t like how little impact Athena had. It seems they were going for a more mysterious vibe, but I would have liked Athena to have more screen time. I also didn’t like how often Zeus’s law was mentioned. It felt like they were shoving it in our face to make sure we understood how Zeus’s law was being abused by people. It was like they were trying to make the major themes of the film easy to understand so that it was more consumable. 

2. It was so loud

The first thing I said when I left the theater was that the movie was so loud. While sometimes loudness can make a viewer feel like they’re in the movie, I don’t think that worked out for this one. The scene that sticks out as the loudest is when the cyclops gets his eye poked. Everyone in the theater physically jumped. But what sucked is that it was so loud that I didn’t even realize that the cyclops was speaking, and I completely missed the major plot point of the cyclops being Poseidon’s son. Even in my second watch, where I focused really hard, I still couldn’t understand what the cyclops was saying.

3. The women characters

I’ve never really watched any of Nolan’s past movies, so when I heard that people were saying that he can’t write female characters, I thought it was a joke. After watching The Odyssey, I ended up agreeing with that statement. The women characters just felt dull. Specifically, I want to talk about Calypso. In the movie, it felt like she was only there to help Odysseus, to heal and nurture him. We don’t learn anything about her, her thoughts, and reasons. We never know that she justifies trapping Odysseus by stating that male gods take mortal lovers all the time, so why can’t she? The lack of any context when it comes to Calypso really simplified her character.

4. It was filmed in IMAX

Maybe I just haven’t done enough research, but I really don’t understand the hype of a movie being filmed in IMAX. I understand that it’s a bigger screen, but I don’t understand how that makes a movie better. I watched The Odyssey on a regular screen and on IMAX, and both experiences were pretty much the same. The only difference was that my ticket for the regular screen was 7 dollars, and for IMAX it was 20 dollars. 

Overall, the movie was pretty good; I definitely enjoyed my time watching it. I will probably not watch it again once it’s out for streaming.

Did you like The Odyssey

• yes
• no
• didn't see it