Christopher Nolan's latest film, "The Odyssey," has opened to widespread critical acclaim, with many reviewers heralding it as a career highlight. The $250 million epic, based on Homer's classic tale, currently boasts a 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes from nearly 60 reviews, placing it above Nolan's previous works like "The Dark Knight," which holds a 94% critic score.
The film's review embargo lifted on Wednesday, ahead of its Friday release, revealing a near-unanimous wave of praise. The Daily Mail's Brian Viner described the movie, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and Zendaya, as "a glorious cinematic experience, a triumph both of story-telling and movie-making." He added that despite its nearly three-hour runtime, "one viewing simply isn't enough."
Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian awarded the film five stars, calling it "god-tier" and a "breathtaking epic of men, monsters and moral metamorphosis" with "thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair."
However, some critics noted deviations from Homer's original text. John Nugent of Empire stated that while the film is an "elegant and economical adaptation" that doesn't require a Classics degree to understand, "some purists may bristle at the liberties taken with the text, with significant omissions." He observed that the dialogue loses some of the original's poetry but gains in "visual and structural poetry."
Historian Mary Beard, writing for The Times, commented on the modernizations, such as Tom Holland's character Telemachus referring to Odysseus as "Dad." Beard felt this grounded the epic "in the here and now, not set in a hoary past."
David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter characterized the film as "a meditative action movie both immense and intimate," but suggested its flow is occasionally impeded by the source material's episodic nature and some casting choices. Rooney specifically found Tom Holland, playing Damon's onscreen son, miscast, stating he "comes across as, well, Peter Parker in a tunic, sapping the gravitas from Telemachus' path to maturity."
Conversely, Gregory Nussen of Deadline disagreed, labeling Holland's performance his "strongest one to date" and noting a "newfound maturity" in his portrayal.
Several critics lauded the female cast members. Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent noted that "it's the women (among them Anne Hathaway and Samantha Morton) who steal the show." RogerEbert.com Editor-at-Large Matt Zoller Seitz called Nolan's casting decisions "not just defensible but inspiring." Danny Leigh of the Financial Times praised Lupita Nyong'o's "vivid and bristling" performance as Helen of Troy, though suggested she "deserves more screen time."
Nolan's direction also received significant praise. Hoai-Tran Bui for Inverse suggested the film marks a "new page in his filmography," deepening the introspection seen in "Oppenheimer" while remaining a "rousing and spectacular feat of blockbuster entertainment."
Robbie Collin, writing for The Telegraph, called "The Odyssey" a "strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie" and "by some distance, the best of the year so far." He posited that Nolan has turned "one of the oldest stories in literature into a vote of confidence in blockbuster cinema's future."
Metro's Tori Brazier declared the film "a watershed moment for filmmaking," while Guy Lodge of Variety described Nolan's take as "thorough, robust and attentive both to scholarly detail and old-school moviemaking craft."
There was a dissenting voice, with Stephanie Zacharek of Time labeling "The Odyssey" an "eye-glazing dud." She cited the battle scenes as "elaborate" but "so tastefully un-bloody that it's hard to feel there's anything at stake."
Samantha Morton's performance as Circe received particular acclaim, with one scene described as "the only truly good one." A producer revealed that Nolan's reaction to Morton's performance on set was comparable to his reaction to Heath Ledger's work in "The Dark Knight."
"The Odyssey" is Nolan's most expensive film to date, with a budget of $250 million, and the first to be shot entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras. The film is set to be released in cinemas on July 17.