The Odyssey (2026): A Review

THE ODYSSEY (2026)

When I was younger, I enjoyed mythology. One of the best books I have read about the ancient tales of Greek gods and the mortals who tangled with them was Edith Hamilton's Mythology. That is where I first encountered the tale of the Trojan War and what came before and after that doomed city's fall. The Odyssey draws from both that epic poem and The Iliad to craft its story of one man's quest to return home. The Odyssey has some qualities that make it a decent enough film. It is also too long, slightly rambling and worse of all, so dry that one feels nothing about its story or its characters. 

Told in a non-linear manner, I am opting for as straightforward a telling. Greek warrior king Odysseus (Matt Damon) attempts to recall his life to Calypso (Charlize Theron). He has flashes of men under his command and of a faraway family. Odysseus, however, struggles to recall things, even when the goddess Athena (Zendaya) appears to him.

Odysseus is the long-missing King of Ithica. He left to partake in the Trojan War, where his creation of a large horse allowed the Greeks to take the city. Greek soldier Sinon (Elliot Page) has been fooled into thinking that the horse really was a gift to Athena and is killed by the Trojans for the trouble of revealing what Sinon has been told. Once Troy fell, Odysseus and his men had many adventures. They blinded a cyclops. They were briefly turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe (Samantha Morton). They passed the tempting Sirens, maneuvered between the monster Charybdis and the whirlpool of Scylla. Odysseus was fated to be the only survivor as foretold by the dead prophet Tiresias (James Remar). Odysseus had to travel to Hades to gain the information on how to return home, but the dead of Troy were after him.

Had Odysseus not spent years drugged by the lusty Calypso, he would have perhaps rushed home sooner. His palace is overwhelmed with unruly suitors to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway). Chief among those vying to take Ithica's throne is local boy Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Antinous insists that he wanted to go fight in the Trojan War, but this was untrue. He is set on taking power, and delights in mistreating Odysseus' son Telemachus (Tom Holland). Telemachus is determined to find out what happened to the father he barely remembers. For that, he travels to the court of Menelaus (Jon Berthal) in Sparta. Menelaus and his wife Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong'o) recognize the young man and give him details of Odysseus during the war. They also give him information about Menelaus' brother Agamemnon (Bennie Safdie) and his own wife Clytemnestra (Nyong'o in a dual role). 

There are evil plans to get rid of Telemachus when he returns. Fortunately for him, Odysseus has remembered who he is and is now on his way to Ithica. Will Penelope finally be forced to submit to one of the suitors. Will Odysseus be recognized? Will Ithica be restored?

After finishing the epic The Odyssey, one word kept coming to me about the entire film. That one word is "dispassionate". There is an unrelenting, unremitting sense of moroseness throughout the almost three-hour film. No one in ancient mythical Greece, apparently, ever experienced joy or laughter. Instead, The Odyssey is filled with eternal gloom and such somber seriousness that even Ingmar Bergman might find overdone. We learn that even the Sirens' song is not some beautiful lure for men. Instead, it is a song of immense regret. "It told you what you most want is what you most can't have and that the most you can't have is what you already had and lost. It was a song of all the promises I failed to keep. And it told me that I really don't want to go home".

Far be it for me to question screenwriter/director Christopher Nolan, but that kind of song would not lure me into the ocean in a mad pursuit to join them. It would, rather, repel me. Nolan's interpretation of the Siren song would fit within his dour, morose vision of The Odyssey. It does not, however, fit within how I have experienced this epic tale. 

The Odyssey that I remember is one filled with adventure, with wit and with a contradictory hero. Odysseus as played by Matt Damon is a deeply haunted man even before he went to Troy. It is curious that The Odyssey portrays Odysseus as someone who was at most a very reluctant participant in the pillaging of Troy. He looks shellshocked, perhaps horrified, by what he sees. I was reminded of Nolan's previous film Oppenheimer while watching The Odyssey. One could even see The Odyssey as something of a companion piece to Nolan's Oscar-winning epic. Both men became Death, the Destroyer of Worlds. They both used their intelligence to bring about total destruction and now live to regret what they have wrought upon the world.

That is all well and good. However, for myself, I cannot accept that Odysseus would be guilt-stricken at all. Far from it. When Troy fell, Odysseus was in the thick of it, looting, desecrating and perhaps ravishing Trojan women. He felt no guilt or qualms about his actions. He was an arrogant leader who did eventually see the error of his way. This version, however, opted for the perpetually regretful figure.

That, again, is fine as I figure that Nolan envisioned the character as such. I just kept stumbling through my own memories of the Greek myths to fully immerse myself with The Odyssey. My memories, for example, had me think that Sinon was fully aware of the Trojan Horse deception. Sinon was no innocent but a willing participant. I figure that The Odyssey was meant as a meditation on regret and sorrow. That is fine, I suppose. I just wondered why no one could enjoy themselves. 

I also did not see Odysseus' transition. If he started out with regret at having to participate in the war, why would we care if he stayed the same when he finally returned? Nolan's directing of his cast brings to mind a longstanding complaint of mine when it comes to "serious drama". It mistakes speaking softly with seriousness. There is much whispering and stillness throughout The Odyssey. Even moments that I figure should have had more emotion such as Circe's transformation of the men into pigs are surprisingly soft and still. 

I felt that overall, The Odyssey was so remote and aloof, far from any sense of magic or adventure. It gives moroseness a bad name. 

When it comes to any controversy over The Odyssey's casting, I am of the mindset that two things can be simultaneously true. It is more than probable that performers like Zendaya, Page, Nyong'o and Hamish Patel as Eurylochus were cast to meet the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' diversity quotas for Best Picture consideration. It is also pretty much irrelevant given that these are fictional characters. This is not like when Jodie Turner-Smith was cast as Anne Boleyn despite Turner-Smith being black. That casting flies against reality. The characters of Athena, Sinon, Helen of Troy and Eurylochus, conversely, are fictional. Therefore, while the casting may be non-traditional and done out of a desire for awards recognition, it ultimately does not affect the overall story. One ultimately should judge by the performances.

I saw them as pretty much all the same. They kept to Nolan's dour, somber vision. Zendaya's Athena (the only god or goddess to appear, albeit more as a voice of conscience versus a literal deity) had one job, which was to scowl at Odysseus. Whether or not one wants to say that scowling is Zendaya's sole quality as an actress I leave to others. It is pretty much impossible for me to say that anyone in The Odyssey gave a performance since they were all the same. I am surprised at how much praise has been thrown at the film in terms of acting given that no one really showed any emotion apart from somberness. There is simply no lightness, no sense that these people are real.

Perhaps an effort can be made that Robert Pattinson was slightly better than most as Antinous. He was a quiet villain, so he got a chance to be evil. Still, at the climax when Odysseus is taking down all the loutish suitors, there did not seem to be any sense of danger or urgency. Again and again, I found so much of The Odyssey flat and painfully remote.

Matt Damon never looked overawed by some of the sights that he, a mere mortal, beheld. He looked surprisingly bored. Anne Hathaway made something of an effort, but she felt a bit forced in trying to be the strong woman in a man's world. Samantha Morton in what is basically a cameo as Circe did not display the rage or hatred for men that Circe presumably had. She seemed to treat the men that she had transformed as more bad guests than major threats. 

I did find some parts amusing, but not in a good way. Early on, Tom Holland's Telemachus wants to convince his mother Penelope that he can be in charge. "I'm a man, Mom," he tells her. I chuckled at this statement. It's hard to make the case that one is a man when you still say "Mom" in an almost apologetic manner. 

That use of current language, like Telemachus' use of "Mom" and "Dad" along with Odysseus' cry of "LET'S GO!" and his desire to get off this "f---ing beach" did not sit well with me. It felt less epic and more "dumbed down" for modern audiences. Worse was when Odysseus, I believe, told his men, "The gods help those who help themselves". I literally said to myself, "YIKES!". 

Nolan's script is a bit tin eared. The dialogue explaining "Zeus' law" is a bit too on the nose, almost explanatory.  The segment about Clytemnestra did not forward the overall plot, a curious decision given the nearly three-hour runtime. A potential assassin in Athena's temple was killed because he was literally monologuing. If he hadn't talked so much, he would have gotten around to killing both Odysseus and Telemachus.  

There were, to be fair, some good elements in The Odyssey. Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography worked rather well, particularly when Odysseus enters Hades. The fall of Troy, while not thrilling, was also pretty well-filmed. Ludwig Goransson's score was also solid if at times keeping to the somber tone rather than emphasizing adventure or amazement.

The good news is that I stayed awake for all three hours of The Odyssey. The bad news is that I stayed awake for all three hours of The Odyssey. Overpraised by some, excessively criticized by others, I look upon The Odyssey with the same remote, aloof, distant and dispassionate manner of the film itself. This is not a terrible film. It is also not a film that I foresee myself revisiting ever again. 

DECISION: C+