Odyssey Review

Every year has its cinematic blockbusters that a vast majority of the American and worldwide moviegoing populace go out of their way to experience. A film that sets trends, captivates discussion for subsequent weeks and months on end, and leverages the A-List, star-studded cast to generate mass appeal. The mainstream's centerpiece, an Oscar-baiting Trojan Horse, if you will. We had the Barbenheimer double-feature, Zootopia (and also Avatar) last year, and this year, that movie is the Odyssey.

Adapted off among literature's oldest stories about a military commander's adventure home through trials and tribulations, Christopher Nolan's iteration on this magnificent epic is a mostly faithful, modernistic imagining of Bronze Age civilization's twilight. The Trojan War is concluded, Agamemnon controls the trade routes, and Helen is returned back to the man from whom she fled. Yet all is not well in paradise. Rumors are abound of sea-people, a barbaric legion traversing across the vast ocean pillaging and raiding, burning entire settlements to the ground and their natives with them. The titular Odysseus is meanwhile decades-absent from his homeland of Ithaca, allowing a circle of spiteful, conspiratorial suitors to begin vying for the throne and his wife Penelope's hand in marriage. While I've never fully read the original classic, though this movie certainly gave me inspiration and definitive desire to do so, Nolan's Odyssey is an engaging narrative revolving around the aftermath of a brutal war, the rapidly changing straits of culture and society and what effects those have on individuals, the wrath of gods and what role the divine ought to play in mortal existence, and how one man's guilt came to define the fates of so many. There are slight spoilers ahead, and this is your warning.

The characters and their dynamics throughout this film are phenomenal. Odysseus, Penelope, Agamemnon, Antonius, Menelaus, Telemachus, even Helen, for her brief stint of appearance, and so many others. To describe this film's cast an ensemble would frankly be underselling the sheer power of stardom brought to the table, which really speaks for the equivalent weight Nolan's name holds across Hollywood. The character's relationships to one another are given breathing room to become fully defined. The cowardice of main antagonist Antonius, whom abandons a soldier's father after he takes his place within a draft Agamemnon ordered for the war against Troy, the fish-out-of-water role Telemachus plays as he attempts to navigate a means to eject the opportunistic ring of suitors and claim Ithaca's throne for himself, even Athena, solely appearing as a hallucination, (though I choose to believe her vestiges before Odysseus are genuine manifestations rather than his mental conjuring), carries immense narrative power that culminates near the movie's climax, as the specific reasoning behind Odysseus's prolonged absence come to light. These qualities are bolstered by the film's nearly three-hour runtime, an earned indulgence given the enormity of what this movie attempts to depict. Civilizations being viciously torn down or reaching a slower, degrading period of decline, the fury of certain divine aspects and spirits as they punish the greed and foolishness of mortals, etcetera.

Actually, speaking of that, most of the trials faced by Odysseus and his ever-dwindling crew throughout the movie are wonderfully done. While there are a few parts cut out from the original work I wished they would've retained (the 'Nobody' trick Odysseus plays onto the Cyclops and fully showing the monstrous hydra Charybidis come to mind), there is a sense of overwhelming 'otherness' to each obstacle faced by the veteran envoy of soldiers seeking to return home. A great example would be the Laestrygonians, a race of cannibalistic giants occupying a murky island that Odysseus and friends have the unfortunate luck of settling upon in their desperation to seek food, water, and shelter. Instead, they encounter a child that's already the size of a regular adult male, whom quickly cries out for aid after perceiving these visitors as attackers, or perhaps merely wanting to see them brutally maimed for his amusement. Soon enough, a legion of armored giants wielding broadswords the size of torsos and chests stomps forth, being unaffected by the weakling weapons of Odysseus's troops as they massacre a majority of his fleet with terrifying ease. The scene is tense, filled with gravitas and horror as Odysseus tries fearfully to escape back to shore as these larger-then-life hostiles offer not the slightest mercy.

There's also Circe, the blighted witch who seeks vengeance upon men by supposedly sating their appetites, only for them to become unwitting cannibals themselves as they hungrily devour the meat of their own humanoid brethren before being transmogrified into pigs by her diabolical sorceries, the men only rescued at the last minute by Odysseus's pleading. Whilst there were allegories galore for each trial, it could be summarized enough for the purposes of this review by stating that each one was highly distinctive and didn't meld into the other without rhyme or reason. There were definitive transitions that take the viewer from one part of the Odyssey to the next. This decision was most certainly made to enforce the obscenely lengthy era Odysseus spent away from home. And yet, ultimately, spurned by the gods, fate, and the willpower to see his wife and child once again, he marches onward.

Every part of the film is an individual gem that hours, if not days worth of analysis could be spent picking apart methodically. But undoubtedly, all these suspenseful, terrifying, and tragic moments build up towards the climatic and bloody finale. Telemachus returning home only to discover that a wandering, helpful beggar is in fact his long-lost father, and the both of them organizing the perfect trap to ensnare the smug bastard Antinous and his sniveling lieutenants was like enjoying the perfect dessert to cap off a delectable Sunday Roast. Odysseus weeping over Argos and hardening a resolve for vengeance against the cruel thieves that have taken his property and occupied his life during his absence, him becoming emboldened to his final quest after seeing the maltreatment his servants have been subjected towards... it makes for an utterly irresistible last battle, where the hapless suitors, desperate as they are, become mere mincemeat before the unstoppable might of Odysseus. His confrontation with Antonius is made cathartic by the prior few hours we've seen of him grappling with the war's guilt and every difficulty he's encountered, finally coming to peace with himself and what he's become and resolving to ride off into the sunset with his beloved and leave a genuine legacy for his beloved son... oh, it's perfect. That entire scene of him exacting a grisly toll upon the decrepit band of noblemen abusing Zeus's Law is undoubtedly my favorite of this entire cinematic adventure.

Overall, Odyssey is a blockbuster I can't recommend enough. Quite a mainstream and uncontroversial opinion, I know, but sometimes, the masses are genuinely right in their recommendations. It's a movie meant to cater towards a larger audience, and I'm not entirely sure whether Nolan's left crumbs in there for the more mythologically-gifted viewers to enjoy. If he has, wonderful. If not, I didn't really notice given my own inexperience with the Odyssey to begin with, and therefore it didn't really hamper my enjoyment whatsoever. Give Odyssey a watch in your closest IMAX as soon as possible. Oh, and Agamemnon's aura was truly something special. I'm gobsmacked that it was the same actor who played Edward Teller from Oppenheimer. Truly a versatile talent!