The Odyssey
★★★★½Worth watchingIs The Odyssey worth watching? (No spoilers)
Another smashing success from Nolan. It looks spectacular, the sound is incredible, and the practical effects make every sword, shield and arrow hit hard. Anne Hathaway is insane in it. Tom Holland feels a little outmatched, but it's easily one of the best movies of the year.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: everything below the quick take, including the full review and ending explained, contains spoilers.
The Odyssey review
Another smashing success from Nolan. While obviously skipping on the original stories I often love about his films, he has proved again he can make anything a top movie of the year.
The cast is phenomenal. I want to call out Anne Hathaway's insane performance, as well as Matt Damon, John Bernthal, and the rest of the cast. I do feel Tom Holland was a bit outmatched, both due to poor casting and the need for a little more emphasis on his emotions.
The whole film just looked spectacular, and the sound was great. I loved how jarring every sword, shield, and arrow was. The mass amount of practical effects were obvious in the best way, no sad scenes ruined by CGI.
It felt like the grandest of stories jumped to life, and every moment was thoroughly enjoyable.
The Odyssey ending explained
Odysseus finally makes it back to Ithaca, disguised as a beggar. He finds suitors taking over his home and plotting to kill his son, Telemachus. Penelope challenges the suitors to string Odysseus's bow; only the disguised Odysseus can, and he and Telemachus kill them all. Nolan writes this as grim and regrettable, not a victory.
Before that, still in disguise, Odysseus confesses his guilt from the Trojan War to Penelope. A flashback shows his men killing a priestess of Athena at Troy, and she has Athena's face, which suggests the goddess he's seen on his journey may have been his own guilt all along. This leads the audience to question how much of his interactions with the gods are real, and what has been a figment of his imagination and guilt.
The biggest change from Homer: instead of a happy homecoming, Odysseus chooses exile. He sails west with Penelope to lay his dead men to rest, and Telemachus becomes king. The ending suggests people will keep telling stories of war and glory without learning from them.
Does The Odyssey have a post-credits scene?
No. The Odyssey has no mid-credits or post-credits scene, which is true of every Christopher Nolan film.
Movies like The Odyssey
- Troy (2004) – the Trojan War that comes before this story
- Gladiator (2000) – an epic about a warrior trying to get home to his family
- The Northman (2022) – a brutal, mythic revenge epic
- Oppenheimer (2023) – Nolan on guilt and the cost of a world-changing weapon