THE ODYSSEY (2026)
Like The Dark Knight there's a sense that some of the material in Homer's epic, and its predecessor The Iliad, could have a tendency to become rather silly. There are a lot of choices to unpack in Christopher Nolan's modernist (or perhaps minimalist) adaptation but the way he's decided to depict certain ideas and images is one of the biggest. He must have considered this one of the central problems; that a giant wooden horse, much like the caped crusader, is hard to take seriously. Going full swords and sandals fantasy camp was never on the cards so the results aren't entirely surprising. However, there's still plenty to enjoy in the resulting epic.
Odysseus (Matt Damon) finds finds himself in an existential, or sometimes literal, hell after winning the Trojan war along with the other kings of Ancient Greece. After a decade long fight for glory, and a similarly long struggle across many unknown oceans, he's not sure who he is or where he is. He now fights to remember (or perhaps to forget) and as things progress the different chapters of the story start to come together. Everyone knows Nolan's time hopping style by now, and the episodic nature of the material is a pretty good fit. Meanwhile, in his home kingdom of Ithaca, his wife Penelope waits for his return but is tested by a crowd of slimy suitors, the slimiest being Antinous (Robert Pattinson).
It's a familiar yarn for anyone who's seen a film of read a book borrowing these same images. But the goal of this iteration seems to have been to give everything a sense of grounded believability. Flashes to the Trojan horse depict it as a death trap stuck by rising tides. The cannibal Cyclops, Polyphemus, the likely cannibal Laestrygonians, and the probable cannibal witch Circe (Samantha Morton), are painted with touches of body horror and stark realism. It's occasional undone by some Monty Python and the Holy Grail style running away moments, but it's all pretty potent. It might be relatively bloodless but each episode works.
Elsewhere the horror is explored in a more emotional sense as sequences like the sacking of Troy unfold. It's a world of merely 'apparent magic' as an opening title suggests, although things like animal (and human) sacrifice have results that often seem tangible to the characters. But while Ancient Gods like Athena (Zendaya) are only a subtle, or perhaps imagined, presence, the actions of mortal men often have dark consequences. In many instances talk of fate and honour is simply a way of not facing those who might have avoided death. Abuses of power, and hospitality, thanks to the fabled 'Law of Zeus', are rife even as songs are sung about the good old days.
It's not all so grim but characters like doomed conscript Sinon (Eliot Page) and defeated Queen Helen (Lupita Nyong'o) appear more like pawns to be used in this retelling; rather than mythological figures. The start of the war seems to have been all about cruel ambition, rather than any romantic notions of warrior pride or immortal beauty. Which lends the movie some weight that goes beyond Olympian hijinks. This ambiguity and overall sense of sadness permeates the film in ways that keep the story fresh; after all it's unlikely another version would use the brutally of a final conflict after a decade of pent up frustration this way.
It's bleak stuff but there are of course plenty of interesting design choices and fantasy elements, despite the way it's been pared back. Agamemnon (Bennie Safdie) shows up looking like a Bronze-Age Darth Vader, while other suits of amour and various creature effects are striking in similar ways. Set pieces involving battles (or massacres) are similarly engaging. Things run out of steam somewhat during the third act, before a long foreshadowed flashback ties it all together, where the thesis of the narrative is spelled out. It's a compelling series of events but some scenes involving heir to the throne Telemachus (Tom Holland) could have been cut for tighter pacing.
It's not perfect and it is just another version of an ancient tale, despite this one including new dimensions. A lot of movies in this genre depict the era as being full of timeless heroism, rather than personal doubt or grief, while this suggests that so much subterfuge and killing can only have one outcome. It certainly has much to say about the realities behind popular myths, even if that discussion might be a bit clunky or dry at times. Overall the final product is mostly a thrilling, often harrowing, adventure-meets-horror story. Silly ideas are given gravitas and old tropes are given shock value. The director's style might no longer be a surprise, but his ever changing choice of subject matter is still fascinating to watch.
4/5
