Visually it was great.

The acting was wooden and underwhelming.

The sound was poorly mixed, being both too loud and not loud enough.

That’s 2.5 hours and $10 I’m never getting back.

If you want to watch the Odyssey, May I reccomend O' Brother, Where Art Thou, or The Warriors.

Come out and plaaaaay aaaaaaaay.

Yeah watched it last night. It was fine. I’d say pretty good, but with not much enthusiasm in my voice.

Someone should do a classy British dub where all the characters have the thickest Geordy, Glaswegian, Scouse and Norn Irish accents.

I went to this movie for three things: the spectacle, the cool sounds, and watching serious actors act seriously. It delivered on all those fronts when I watched it.

haven't watched it, probably won't. i watched dunkirk and tenet, and got the feeling nolan lost his mojo. i just find myself sitting there realizing "this movie is not making me particularly give a shit what happens next"

crucify me too

“My dad is coming home!”

• Spider Man, The Odyssey 2026.

I really liked it. Before it came out I was convinced that you can't do a good adaption and was mostly curious what Nolan wanted to achieve with it. Having seen it, I think Nolan succeeded in getting his idea of the themes on the screen but I wouldn't say it is for everyone.

So, I was going to respond to a comment OP made, but decided to expand on it beyond that context. I think way folks may be missing is what the Odyssey is, and that's where the comment started j

As far as that goes, the Odyssy was never realistic. It's an epic, written long after the events would have happened, as a form of entertainment rather than historiography. It's supposed to be unrealistic because it's the equivalent of a graphic novel.

The characters are meant to be damn near demigods. They're the distant past heroes, their stories told orally for generations, then written down in a new form. It simply isn't about realism. If it was, the sirens and the cyclops wouldn't be there.

You have to look at Odysseus as captain america, or black panther. Not quite superhuman in the way of someone like Hercules (the Marvel version or the older myths), but peak human capable of feats that would destroy "regular" people to do just once.

Thus, trying to filter any version of the Odyssey as historical fails. You can't make a realistic movie of it because it's never been realistic, nor the Iliad that precedes it. These are stories of gods, men, and those in between.

Trying to compare it to something like Band of Brothers, where you find a mostly reality grounded story that's a fictional pastiche set during a historical event, just isn't giving credit to the source material.

This needs to be compared to Clash of the Titans.

The immersion break of "dad" is more about the audience's expectations of any far past setting using theatrical formality than any unrealistic placement.

Think about it. If you see your father fall to the ground, grasping his chest, what are you going to scream? Father? Dad? Daddy? Papa? Most people don't call their parents mother and father unless speaking about them distantly. Even then it isn't universal.

The choice in terms of movie values is a difficult one, because Nolan has to be aware that the audience is going to be jarred by their preconceptions when a character supposedly alive over a thousand years ago doesn't have a British accent, and a posh one at that. But that's no more realistic than dad. It's a preconception, not an objective and direct translation of what someone in the time the Odyssey is set in would have said.

People habe suggested "oh brother where art thou" as a superior version of the Odyssey. I don't disagree, but I would point directly to the language used in that movie. It's vernacular English, and not even particularly accurate for the setting it's in. The accents aren't realistic, they're as overblown as a theatrical British one. But we set that aside because the film is amazing in its own rights.

I'm not saying the Nolan Odyssey is a perfect film. Hell, I even agree that it doesn't measure up to its hype. But I think OP's criticisms are as much or more about the preconceptions of the moviegoers as the movie itself. I would agree with the rating of B though! It has flaws (and one of the comments made mentions the jank that's due to IMAX filming necessities where you can only record so much at once points to the one I notice most in IMAX movies), and it has a very Nolan style. Nolan isn't really who I would pick to bring the Odyssey to the screen because you do end up with a little too much style creep, but I also think it's a worthy addition to the litany of greek myth based movies.

Tom Holland and Zendaya have 0 range. Every single movie they play the same people. Especially Tom Holland ruined the immersion for me. He sounds like a GenZ teenager.

Tom Holland was super distracting in this film. Idk, I just see him and I don't see Telemachus, I see Spiderman. He's too recognizable.

Zendaya was less bad, but same problem.

Maybe if they didn't always cast these two in the same films the comparison wouldn't be so easy.

Same.

Sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Like all these people think Matt Damon is good while I think he has zero range.

Maybe Nolan can fuck up the Epic of Gilgamesh next.

Pretty based take.

Speaking for myself, I found it bland but entertaining for most of the ride. Then the last act hit wherein Dr. John Odysseus morbs all over the suitors with his Odyssey skills and I lost all fucking respect.

Might as well have been branded like the cashgrab Marvel movie it turned into near the end.

The part that killed it for me right at the start, even more than American accents was the casual use of the words Mom and Dad, not mother and father.

I particularly enjoyed the reveal that the mighty walls of Troy, which the entire Greek coalition spent 10 years camped outside, was a 15 foot mud brick partition which could have been breached by two tall men and a running jump.

People give the movie Troy shit but at least they did justice to the city in that one.

Tom Holland as incapable 35 year old weak man-boy, spec-ops archer firefights and the "bronze shower" of weapons being dropped through the floor were just the icing on an increasingly ridiculous adaptation.

I will not crucify you because you're absolutely right.

Christopher Nolan is incredibly overrated IMHO. Wooden characters, thin script, over reliance of gimmicks of editing and bombastic music. I can’t see why anybody likes his films all that much.

brother where art thou was a much better oddessey imo. biggest issue with Nolan's (of which there are many) though is the limitations brought by using full imax, due to bulkiness of that film they have to cut every 30-40s iirc. turning the original epic into a tiktok reel

I had a similar reaction to Oppenheimer. It felt like a 3 hour long trailer. Every scene felt like a cut scene, with no real sense of progression. It was amazing visually, but that was pretty much it. I was simultaneously over stimulated and bored by the end, if that's even possible.

All my friends were surprised that I preferred Barbie to it. (We did the double feature Barbenheimer thing.)

If they all had British accents I would have thrown up all over the theater

try the 1997 version

Nothing about that movie was stunning. I’m not sure what the hype is for.

I find the movie mid myself. I agree wholeheartedly about the acting, Robert Pattinson and Spider Man were the two worst for me, especially the scene where spider man shouts “DAD!” like, call him father at least come on… I actually like Anne Hathaway more than most everyone else, she is intense the way a woman would have to be to resist society the way she did for so long. I agree Matt was just Matt doing Matt the whole time, I usually love the guy but I think he was miscast. Honestly everyone being an A list start was a big part of why I found it hard to get into, aside from the bad acting and dumbed down dialogue. I didn’t find the movie to look that good though, were the cameras high quality? Sure but it was just such a bland movie, flat, colorless, drab, you have such beautiful nature in that part of the world, you have literal magical goddesses and Demi goddesses, they definitely had some idea of what people were expecting when you look at Agamemnon’s armor, they just didn’t stylize any other part of the movie, at all? I also agree the pacing was bad, the entire last 3rd of the movie felt like it was dragging it just kept going and going… the long part of the story is the voyage, the pacing was bad. Generally I found it stale, boring, and disappointing, worth a watch once in theaters but I didn’t like it and wouldn’t recommend it.

Honestly, I still prefer the 90s made for TV version with Armand Assante

I have always loved that one.