There are movies you walk out of the theater liking. Then there are movies that somehow get better in your head the longer you think about them. The Odyssey (2026) is definitely the second kind.
I walked out thinking it was really damn good. A few days later, I found myself replaying scenes in my head. Thinking about Matt Damon’s performance. Thinking about some of the imagery. Thinking about the sheer SIZE of the thing.
And now?
I want to see it again.
That’s usually a pretty good sign.
First Things First… That Opening Is a Slog
Before I start gushing, let’s get this out of the way.
The first 30 minutes or so of The Odyssey are tough.
Christopher Nolan basically drops you into Ancient Greece and says, “Good luck.”
There are characters being introduced. Names being thrown around. Alliances. Kings. Sons. Wives. Soldiers. Greeks. Trojans. People talking about other people who you may or may not have met yet.
And if you’re not intimately familiar with Homer’s Odyssey, there’s a decent chance you’re sitting there thinking:
Who the hell is everyone and what exactly are we doing here?
I certainly was.
It doesn’t help that this is a Christopher Nolan movie, which means there were definitely moments where I thought subtitles would have been REALLY helpful.
Not because the performances are bad.
Because between the score, accents, dialogue and everything happening on screen, I genuinely struggled to follow portions of that opening stretch.
For about half an hour, I was a little worried.
This thing is nearly three hours long. If the whole movie was going to feel like homework, we were going to have a problem.
Luckily, it doesn’t.
Not even close.
Once The Journey Begins…
Eventually everything clicks.
And once it does, The Odyssey becomes something pretty incredible.
The basic story is obviously one of the oldest in Western literature: Odysseus, King of Ithaca, is trying to get home after the Trojan War.
Simple enough.
Getting home?
Not so simple.
What follows is this massive journey across the Mediterranean involving war, gods, monsters, storms, death, temptation and basically every possible thing the universe can throw at one guy to keep him from getting back to his wife.
And Nolan goes BIG with it.
This is one of those movies where the phrase “big screen experience” actually means something.
The landscapes are enormous. The battles feel brutal. The ships look and feel real. The mythology is fantastical without turning the movie into some glossy CGI video game.
There are sequences here that feel less like something you’re watching and more like something you’re experiencing.
It’s exactly the kind of movie I want Hollywood spending stupid amounts of money to make.
Matt Damon Is Incredible
Let’s talk about the best part of the movie.
Matt Damon.
I’ve always liked Damon. He’s one of those actors who is so consistently good that I think it’s sometimes easy to take him for granted.
Not here.
He’s phenomenal as Odysseus.
This isn’t some invincible Greek superhero cutting his way through monsters for three hours.
Odysseus is exhausted.
He’s scared. He’s angry. He’s clever. He’s arrogant. He’s grieving.
And as the journey continues, you can almost physically see everything that’s happened to him piling up.
Damon sells every bit of it.
There are stretches of this movie where he barely needs to say anything. You can just look at his face and understand exactly how much this journey has taken from him.
For my money, he deserves an Oscar nomination.
And depending on what else comes out this year, he absolutely deserves to be in the conversation to win the damn thing.
He’s that good.
Nolan Goes Full Nolan
If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan movies before, you know you’re not getting a straightforward sword-and-sandals adventure.
Of course you’re not.
This is the guy who made Memento, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer.
Naturally he’s going to take a story that’s nearly 3,000 years old and find ways to play around with memory, perspective, time and the way stories themselves are told.
And honestly, that’s part of why I think I want to see The Odyssey again.
There are things early in the movie that make considerably more sense once you understand where everything is going.
There are character relationships that I suspect will land differently the second time around.
Moments that initially feel confusing eventually have context.
It’s one of those movies where I think a second viewing might actually be better than the first.
And I already really liked the first.
This Movie Looks Absolutely Insane
I don’t know what else to say about the cinematography other than…
Holy shit.
There are shots in The Odyssey that could be framed and hung on a wall.
Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema make this world feel enormous without making it feel artificial.
The ocean is terrifying. The landscapes are beautiful. The battles are chaotic.
The monsters feel like they belong in the same world as the humans rather than being dropped in from some completely different movie.
That’s a difficult balance to pull off.
This is Greek mythology. You need gods and creatures and impossible things.
But Nolan grounds everything just enough that when those impossible things show up, they feel legitimately unsettling.
And when this movie wants to get dark? It gets DARK.
About That Cast
The cast of this thing is ridiculous.
Anne Hathaway. Robert Pattinson. Zendaya. Charlize Theron. Lupita Nyong’o. Benny Safdie. Jon Bernthal.
It feels like every fifteen minutes another famous person walks onto the screen.
For the most part, everyone delivers.
But if there’s one weak spot for me, it’s Tom Holland.
And I say that as someone who really likes Tom Holland.
He’s a terrific Spider-Man. I’ve liked him in plenty of other things. I’m absolutely not coming into this movie looking to dump on the guy.
But surrounded by this cast?
He feels a little outmatched.
He’s not BAD.
That’s important.
He’s just probably the weakest part of an insanely strong ensemble.
When you’ve got Damon giving what might be one of the best performances of his career and actors like Hathaway and Pattinson showing up around him, Holland feels noticeably lighter.
Maybe that’s partially the character.
Maybe it’ll work better for me on a second viewing.
But he was definitely the one performance that didn’t completely click.
Nearly Three Hours… And Somehow I Wanted More
The Odyssey runs just under three hours.
Normally that’s the point where I start complaining.
Movies have gotten way too freaking long.
Not every story needs three hours. Not every blockbuster needs to be an EVENT.
But here’s the weird thing.
After struggling through those first 30 minutes?
The rest of this thing flew.
Once Odysseus’ journey really gets moving, I was completely locked in.
And considering how much ground Nolan is trying to cover, I’m not even sure what you’d cut.
That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give it.
I went from wondering how I was going to make it through almost three hours to wanting to watch the entire damn thing again.
The Odyssey (2026) – Final Thoughts
The Odyssey isn’t the easiest movie to get into.
That opening stretch is confusing. There are a LOT of names and relationships thrown at you immediately, and I genuinely think subtitles would have made my first viewing easier.
But stick with it. Because once Nolan gets all the pieces on the board, this thing becomes an absolute monster of a movie.
It’s huge without feeling hollow. It’s beautiful without feeling sterile. It’s a spectacle that actually has characters worth caring about.
And right in the middle of all of it is Matt Damon giving an incredible performance as a guy who has survived a war only to discover that getting home might be even harder.
I loved it.
And strangely enough, I think I love it more now than I did when I walked out of the theater.
That’s why I need to see it again.
Maybe this time with subtitles.
Absolutely a recommend.
