I saw The Odyssey over the weekend*, and found it a bit… underwhelming in terms of Nolan films. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was still good, but it didn’t quite scratch that Nolan movie itch. That is, I didn’t really feel much while I was watching it. There were some cool scenes (Pig Transformation Scene, Siren Scene), but nothing that really made me go “WOAH”.

And I think a lot of this boils down to conflicts between Nolan’s directing/writing style and the source material. I like Nolan movies for the clever ideas in them, or the way he often messes with time, and how everything connects together in the end. The Odyssey has none of that. Watching the movie, the plot kind of felt like someone’s stream-of-consciousness fan fiction about their favorite Greek hero, Odysseus. Things kind of just happen, without much reason. Take, for instance, the scene with the giants and the moving trees. Odysseus and his crew land on an island after barely escaping a Cyclops on a previous island. On this new island, they are almost immediately chased off by some giants who can move the trees. That’s it. That’s the entire scene. This part of the story literally has no repercussions for the rest of the film, except for killing a few more of Odysseus’ crew.

This leads to most of the characters being underdeveloped, with motivations and actions that don’t really make sense. Like, you’re telling me Odysseus comes up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, builds the whole thing, and waits inside for days, just to feel guilty about using it to sneak into the city? What?? This makes no sense, and really seems like Nolan just trying to Nolanify the plot to have some satisfying ending that connects to the start of the film (this guilt trip never happens in the original source material). And don’t get me wrong - I usually like overarching ideas like this. That’s one of the reasons I like Nolan movies. But it’s clear that Nolan was taking great leaps from the original source material because it just doesn’t make any sense. I think Nolan’s films work best when he has as much control over the plot as possible - and when you have to adapt a source material that is ~500 pages long, he doesn’t have the control he needs to make something truly special.

In terms of rating this with respect to other Nolan movies, it would probably go near the bottom. Better than Tenet, but worse than Oppenheimer. Still a good movie, though.

- Ahren

* okay actually the weekend before - I’ve procrastinated posting this