Tag: 2026

The Odyssey (2026)

4/4 stars

Christopher Nolan is one of the 21st century’s greatest filmmakers. If Oppenheimer and Interstellar hadn’t made this clear, The Odyssey most certainly will. As Homer’s great epic was a masterclass of world literature, Nolan’s definitive adaptation of the work is a masterclass in cinematic art. It is one of the most ambitious movies ever made and the final product is worthy of the effort.

The homecoming of Odysseus is among the oldest and most well-known stories of the western world. It’s themes and motifs, not to mention its venturesome qualities, continue to shape the arts today; with only The Bible and, perhaps, Shakespeare quite reaching its level of influence.
Christopher Nolan’s film is a faithful adaptation of the original poem, but he also achieves with it a transformative meditation on the aftermath of war and the cynicism that comes with it. The Achaean Greeks had approached the Trojan War with a sense of glorious cause. Homer’s Iliad meditates on this aspect quite thoroughly, in fact. But, tragedy and loss followed in its wake. Odysseus (Matt Damon) is presented in the film as a man haunted by his past and what he has to live with in the present. He and the other veterans of the war are left with only tatters of their former lives and the glorious cause they had once thought so noble and important seems little more than a lie that stole their lives away. The survivors are now old men with wives and children they have not seen in years. For some, their homecomings are a bitter welcome. Agamemnon – whose story was made famous in Aeschylus’ Oresteia – returns home to a wife who had taken a lover while he was gone and she murders him in his bed. Many do not return at all.

For Odysseus, his return holds more promise, but he is delayed. The tale of his wanderings is told in flashbacks as he dwells on an island inhabited by Calypso (Charlize Theron) who is all too happy to let him stay there and find forgetfulness eating lotus flowers. But, at home he has a wife and a son who have been waiting for him for years. Telemachus (Tom Holland) is due to take his father’s place as ruler of their household, but the parasitic presence of suitors trying to win his mother Penelope’s (Anne Hathaway) hand puts their family under threat and she holds out on them in hopes for Odysseus’s return. The leader of the gang of suitors, Antinous (Robert Pattinson), is a particularly slimy individual. He regularly tries to goad Telemachus into anger so as to provide an excuse to kill him. They view the Greek rules of hospitality as something to take advantage of, while much of the world is said to be abandoning it altogether.

A primary driving force for Odysseus to leave his complacency on Calypso’s island is his own guilt which is personified in visions of Athena (Zendaya) that only he can see. Like in the original Homer epic the gods are feared, but they are largely unseen. Homer’s Iliad made more use of them in its narrative, but The Odyssey gives Man more space to work things out on his own. Instead, the supernatural elements at play are the subjects of fantasy such as monsters and witches. Nolan blends these brilliantly with the overall realism of the film. Here they are shown as naturally occurring phenomena that are as much a part of the world as the men and women and their polities. This is made most apparent in Odysseus’s journey to Hades which is not shown as a descent into some fantastical realm, but rather a grim calling of the souls of the dead to a lonesome fog-laden island.

The two highlights of Odysseus’s adventures are with the Cyclops and the witch Circe. The classic episode where his men are turned into pigs by Circe is horrifying to watch. It’s a slow Cronenbergian process where the twisting of their forms into the shapes of beasts is fuel for nightmares.
The Cyclops is equally visually impressive. Nolan understands special effects better than most filmmakers working today and his use of it is always appropriate and never forceful. He lights and shoots his scenes using CGI in such a way that the viewer needs little demand to suspend their disbelief. As with the transformation of Odysseus’s men into pigs, the Cyclops appears like a real tangible thing that was photographed along with the human actors. The sound design (which will shock me if it doesn’t earn an Oscar next year) is impressive throughout the film, and the Cyclops scene is one of its best examples. He lets out a roar that is unlike anything that I have ever heard in a movie before and I dare a horror film to produce a sound as monstrous and terror-inducing as this.

My favorite scene, however, is when they encounter the Sirens. It is not sexualized as some may expect, but presents one of the deepest moments in the film and some of the finest acting of Matt Damon’s career. Like the sailors with wax in their ears, we do not hear their song, but the effect it has on Odysseus and what he has to say about the experience afterward is a moment where we see the movie at its most poignant.

The Odyssey is the first movie in cinematic history to be filmed entirely on 70mm IMAX cameras and the end result is sweeping and beautiful. While keeping to a natural and realistic approach to the mythological elements of the story, the cinematography remains epic and massive in scope. Looking at the images, especially the ones set at sea, I was overwhelmed with the sense that this is a film that had been on Nolan’s mind for some time. This was a passion project that he was determined to give justice to and to get right. He has most certainly done so. I have called his treatment of the story as definitive and I stand by it. No adaptations of Homer’s work on film have ever achieved this level of excellence. The Odyssey along with Dune: Part Two, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, and Nolan’s own Oppenheimer will be remembered as among the greatest films of the past decade. This nostalgia-obsessed internet age culture that lurks among YouTube essayists and basement dwelling review-bombers would have you believe that great cinema is dead. Don’t believe them.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Producers: Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, Thomas Hayslip, Zakaria Alaoui, Leifur B. Dagfinnsson, Hjortur Gretarsson, Helen Medrano, Erik Paoletti, Kostas Raftopoulos, Andy Thompson
Cast: Matt Damon (Odysseus), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Corey Hawkins (Polybus), Jarreth J. Merz (Leodes), Niko Nicotera (Peisander), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Elliott Page (Sinon), Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Elyes Gabel (Elatus), Iddo Goldberg (Amphimedon), Jamie Harris (Agelus), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus), Mia Goth (Melanthus), Ryan Hurst (Mentor), Kate Fuglei (Eurycleia), Benny Safdie (Agamemnon), Himesh Patel (Eurylochus), Jovan Adepo (Elpenor), Andrew Howard (Polites), Josh Stewart (Antiphates), Logan Marshall-Green (Melanthius), Charlize Theron (Calypso), Zendaya (Athena), Jon Bernthal (Menelaus), Jimmy Gonzales (Cepheus), Jesse Garcia (Menetus), Ryan de Quintal (Ilus), Will Yun Lee (Anchialus), Anthony Molinari (Perimedes), Stephen Murphy (Phemius), Matt Lasky (Peisenor), Ian Casselberry (Dolios), Sean Avery (Laodamus), Bill Irwin (Cyclops), Lupita Nyong’o (Helen/Clytemnestra), Samantha Morton (Circe), James Remar (Tiresias), Brian Vernel (Irus)
Composer: Ludwig Goransson
Cinematographer: Hoyte van Hoytema
Editor: Jennifer Lame

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) [spoiler-free]

2/4 stars

On Facebook this afternoon I read a comment from someone gushing over The Mandalorian and Grogu, saying it was like “sitting through an entire season” of the TV series. I am afraid I cannot help but agree. The movie very much feels like an extended episode of the Mandalorian TV show, with a narrow unexpansive story that doesn’t justify the silver screen.

“Baby Yoda” has become a cultural icon for a lot of people; his casual appearances not limited to merchandise, but also memes and fan art much in the same way as Betty Boop or Tinker Bell a few decades ago. I suspect that the movie was mostly made for Baby Yoda fans in mind. The film certainly doesn’t bother much with any loose ends or plot arcs of the TV series and it can be approached without having seen the show at all. What we get instead is a barely significant side adventure featuring the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and, of course, Baby Yoda himself, Grogu. But there is nothing here that expands the Star Wars galaxy an inch. The current intrigues of the New Republic after the fall of the evil Empire are not touched upon and the personal lives of the two leads are not altered in any way that future seasons of the TV show need worry about. All in all, The Mandalorian and Grogu is the sort of story best suited for TV or one of the innumerable comics and novels set in the Star Wars universe. There is nothing here that merits a theatrical experience and I personally suggest saving your 15 dollars and wait for its release on Disney+.

I shall spare plot details for the spoiler-conscious save to say that the main plot involves The Mandalorian, now working for the New Republic, taking orders from Rebel navy pilot, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver). She wants him to track down remaining Imperial warlords, but one of his targets is elusive and info on his whereabouts is known to the Hutts who want a favor in return. The Mandalorian and Grogu will cross paths with one Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allan White) whom the Hutts want returned to them. But, Rotta has ambitions and dreams of his own and conflicts of interest soon turn the Mandalorian’s mission into something much more complicated.

But enough about all that. The movie is only a few days old and Star Wars mixed with spoilers tends to explosive results on the internet. What I can say is that White’s voice acting as Rotta is nothing to write home about. In his defense, the dialogue he is given is the sort of uninspired, depthless, on-the nose junk given to characters in adventure-oriented cartoons. Jeremy Allan White conjures no enthusiasm in the role and he felt entirely out of place every time he speaks.

The weakest elements in the movie are the action sequences and special effects, which is a damned shame when speaking about a Star Wars movie. The effects are nothing we haven’t seen before on any of the Star Wars television series and there is not a memorable shot or anything groundbreaking to be seen in its over two hour runtime. The action sequences come and go entirely too often, with the Mandalorian plodding through the plot from one fight to another each following a pattern of minion fighting, boss fight, and deus ex machina. I felt I was watching a video game more than a movie. All of the sequences are shot extremely fast and often under murky lighting so that I was never able to get a good look at any of the creatures and droids that our hero battles with. The fight scenes are all a visual blur and they unfortunately make up about 80% of the film. After leaving the theater I felt that I still could not say what any of the baddies looked like.
I saw the movie at a local theater in my hometown which makes me hesitate to comment on the film’s sound design as it is possible the issues lay in the theater’s setup rather than the movie itself. But some of the things I heard weren’t pleasant. The movie is heavy-handed with explosions and they are so loud that they drown out the music and other sounds in the mix. This may be a failure of the film’s sound-mixing or something that will improve when I rewatch it at home. But, my local cinema’s fault or not, this ended up being one of the loudest Star Wars movies I have seen and not in a way for the better.
By the end, the movie had me feeling exhausted with nothing interesting to reward me for having seen it.

I would like to say the movie isn’t all bad though. There are moments I genuinely liked. Grogu, for one, is given a great deal to do compared to the TV show and the scenes that focus entirely on him are some of the movie’s best. There is also a small cameo of Martin Scorsese playing a four-armed monkey that I found delightful and I sorely wished for more of him. The obligatory bits of comedy found in these sorts of pictures were put to good use here and, indeed, the small moments between the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda when things are quiet were when the movie was most entertaining.

But the movie’s story and action set pieces are nothing but a load of ho-hum. Traditionally Star Wars movies, even the weaker entries like Solo or Rise of Skywalker, manage to sweep the viewer off on a grand adventure that moves the Saga in new directions and treats our starving eyes to new images and places in the imagination. The Mandalorian and Grogu does none of these things. I wanted the film to take me to a galaxy far, far away. Instead, it took me to a galaxy not much farther than my living room.