“The Odyssey”
(USA/UK)
Metacritic (7/10), Letterboxd (3.5/5), Imdb.com (710), TMDB.com (7/10), Imdb critics review
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As one of the 2026 summer movie season’s most anticipated releases, writer-director Christopher Nolan’s screen adaptation of Homer’s literary epic, The Odyssey, has generated more than its share of reactions and for a variety of reasons. So I’ll come right to the point on my view of this release: I liked it, but I didn’t love it. This retelling of the diverse experiences of Greek warrior Odysseus (Matt Damon) on returning to his Grecian home of Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War explores the many adventures and profound soul-searching of his 10-year journey, the second half of a 20-year-long absence. Waiting for him back home are his devoted wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who has long been courted by a band of would-be suitors like Antinous (Robert Pattinson) who believe her husband is dead, and Telemachus (Tom Holland), the son who’s never met his father and stands to succeed him as King of Ithaca should he be officially declared deceased. This historic drama, a common reading selection in many high school English lit classes, thus follows the intrigue and adventures from the perspectives of the trip and the homefront, many of which viewers are likely to find familiar in this cinematic depiction. However, not everything works in this adaptation. For starters, the film is too long with its 2:52:00 runtime, especially during the picture’s languishing, talky opening hour. Then there’s the writing, which incorporates more than its share of ill-fitting contemporary dialogue, material that should have never made its way into the final script. And there are noticeable exclusions and underdeveloped sequences from the source material that could have been included and/or tweaked in the film narrative with the removal of overlong, extraneous material. For example, despite frequent references to the Greek gods, their presence in the film is largely absent save for a few conversations between Odysseus and Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom (Zendaya). A similar fate befalls Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o), “the woman who launched a thousand ships” and prompted the Trojan War in the first place, and Calypso (Charlize Theron), the mysterious caregiver who loves an ailing Odysseus and nurses him back to health for seven years in the midst of his journey. With those shortcomings aside, however, “The Odyssey” has its share of strengths, too, such as the picture’s decidedly engaging second half, as well as its fine performances, especially those of Hathaway, Pattinson, Holland and Samantha Morton as Circe, a witch whom Odysseus encounters during the trip home. Those looking for action-adventure segments will find plenty of those here as well, although the special effects depicting them are noticeably inconsistent – great in sequences like the Greeks’ ambush of their opponent’s stronghold with the ploy of the Trojan Horse and the soldiers’ dangerous encounter with the massive, menacing whirlpool Charybdis, and not so great during their contacts with the seductively voiced Sirens, the one-eyed giant Cyclops and the multi-headed cliff-dwelling monster Scylla. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how and why this production failed to live up to some of the high expectations that had been set for it, though it’s a safe bet that it might have fallen prey to believing its own pre-release hype, especially coming off of the impressive and well-earned success of Nolan’s previous effort, “Oppenheimer” (2023). Obviously, viewers will have to make up their own minds, but keeping the foregoing impressions in mind may prove helpful in formulating those opinions as audiences wend their way through their own personal odysseys.