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The Odyssey
Is the Odyssey Christopher Nolan's best film yet?
Review: Christopher Nolan. The writer and director of so many classic greats, chooses to follow up the movie that won him his first Best Director Oscar by telling the epic of all epics - The Odyssey. Because of the legacy and historical nature of this story, so much was riding on the movie on meeting the expectations of Homer’s original story along with the expectations of the follow up to Oppenheimer.
To cut to the chase, Christopher Nolan does it again, making a movie that is genuinely gorgeous to watch. Since they shot the whole film on location in Greece, Morocco, and Italy, every set piece was real, every boat sailed on was actually sailed on, and every journey across these vast locations were actually made. Each scene comes to life, whether it is the scene with Polythemus in the cave, the actual voyages sailed on, the journey to Circe, the passing through the sirens, the meeting with Hades, and the sacking of Troy. The way all of these sets looked and were used were just marvelous, bright, vibrant, and authentic, doing their best to immerse you in the story.
I could go on and on about the way the movie looked, how well it was directed, and how well it was acted, but what really shocked me in the movie is how it didn’t fully buy me in. I really struggled to get bought in on the emotional core of the movie, so the movie to me, despite being gorgeous to watch, was just The Odyssey. What makes it worse is that I wasn’t even a fan of Homer’s version of The Odyssey to begin with.
Before watching the movie I knew this was going to be a struggle for me, as I remember not being the biggest fan of the story from school, but I was hopeful this movie could not only spark my interest with the story, but help me fall in love with it, but that ended up not happening, which was extremely disappointing.
The emotional core of the movie is made up of 2 parts. The first part is Odysseus returning home to his wife, son, and dog, with them patiently awaiting their return. The second part is the impact of keeping and breaking Zeus’s law (treating others with the same kindness and respect you would wish to receive, under the theological belief that strangers may be gods in disguise). The first part was the part that really worked for me, as by the time the end of the movie comes around, reunions do occur, and Christopher Nolan does such a fantastic job at making these reunions feel so meaningful. While this part worked for me, it’s the 2nd part that didn’t, and it was this part that ended up being the real emotional hook at the end of the movie. I understood how the pieces were connecting, and how they were trying to bring the mistakes of the past to be made whole in the future/present, but it landed completely flat for me and I felt absolutely nothing. Because of this, by the time the movie ended, all I really thought was “That was it?”, which really disappointed me.
As an additional item that really threw me off at the beginning was the pacing and editing. Because the movie was shot completely in 70mm IMAX film, in order to project the movie on 70mm IMAX projectors, they had to get the movie under 3 hours long which had them be very aggressive on the editing, especially at the beginning of the movie. Not only does it start a little slow, it also jumps everywhere with the edits, and it was really throwing me off, especially for a Christopher Nolan movie. While this was a persistent issue in the first 15-25 minutes of the movie, once the story started picking up the editing issues definitely went away, having the rest of the movie be immaculate.
Overall, it really does seem like I am dogging on the movie more than I am praising it, but the movie does have so much good in it. There are so many stand out scenes that I could talk about (the island with Circe, the Sirens, every sequence depicting the Trojan Horse and the sacking of Troy, and Odysseus’s return to Ithaca to take on the suitors) that were jaw dropping cinema, but I also feel that every other person writing a review is going to say the same positive things about these same scenes, so I didn’t want to be redundant. That being said, the ending didn’t land for me, and at the end of the day it’s just The Odyssey. I wish I could have bought in on the story more, but even seeing the movie in beautiful IMAX, I was still left a little disappointed, making this one of my least favorite Christopher Nolan films.
Rating: 3.5/5
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