The early scenes of The Odyssey set a rhythm: a beat thrumming through every scene before a single oar hits the deep blue sea; before Ludwig Göransson’s extraordinary, percussive score pounds us to the third act and the final, inevitable return of Odysseus (Matt Damon) to his homeland.

That rhythm is set in conversations, powered as ever by Christopher Nolan’s insistence on live dialogue that leaves words muffled and sentences fluctuating, and particularly when cutting between Telemachus (Tom Holland), the son who never knew his father, and his wounded mother, Penelope (a steely Anne Hathaway), one of the many women abandoned to fate in The Odyssey. Nearly two decades after Odysseus’s departure, the pair are abused the Law of Zeus, the bond of hospitality undercut by fear of incurring the wrath of a god that zigzags through the three hours that follow before it pays off with an almighty thunderclap. That rhythm is a defining feature of a Nolan film, and in The Odyssey, it feels stronger and more confident than ever. 

In Ithaca, the palace is overrun by suitors. The kingdom has ground to a halt in that extended dating power grab, where, like the rest of Greece, rumours swirl of the men from the sea who will end civilisation. We’re first exposed to Telemachus’s frustrations and shortcomings in an opening that chimes with the opening of Dune, an epic that can’t help but be seen as a rival (the third part is likely to vie with the Odyssey at next year’s Oscars). But already that rhythm is building from the start. 

The soundtrack is a huge part of The Odyssey’s success and Göransson’s most successful collaboration with Nolan. It’s unleashed to punch, clang, and percussively assault the senses, an unsurprising success given that The Odyssey is Nolan’s greatest achievement. It’s the supreme culmination of his filmography to date. Riddled with themes of artifice and reality in a land governed by hidden deities, it unfolds in a dreamscape. 

‘Fantasies and dreams, nightmare…” as the end title track from Göransson, James Blake and Travis Scott nails it… From moving trees and suggestive, memory-hazing lotus flowers to the earsplitting nightmare roar of the cyclops (his face twisted with Picasso’s eye). Then there’s the fundamental inhumanity of Scylla, like the cyclops, a danger from above. A bridge to Hades has the portents rise from below, and throughout Odysseus is visited by an ethereal Athena (Zendaya). By the third act, Nolan unexpectedly picks up the nihilistic thematic reins from Oppenheimer (2023) and elevates them. Similar to Apocalypto, the end of the Bronze Age is tantamount to the end of the world. Then, Nolan unleashes a full delivery of Odysseus’s retribution (where vengeance isn’t enough—he “brings it all”). 

That return of a broken hero is an arc Nolan’s tackled before, and it’s not an easy one. The Odyssey works better than the similarly lengthy The Dark Knight Rises (2012), in building the motivation and consequences behind this figure of rightful, unstoppable vengeance. When Odysseus unleashes the past 20 years, it’s the final spark at the end of time. 

The Odyssey doesn’t exactly shift up a gear the moment Odysseus leaves his imprisonment by Calypso, but as the antagonist finally trusts in the fates and perversely takes control of his destiny, Nolan’s vision reaches a cathartic new level. There’s a swell of emotion that melts any suggestion of Nolan coolness. It’s a wallop, leaving space, and audiences, ready for the third act to deliver its hard-hitting truths about the returning warrior’s actions during the Trojan War and their hard-hitting consequences.

Nolan wisely follows up Homer’s structure, building on the parts to meet his themes. The story is carried through tales passed down—Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) then King Menelaus (Jon Bernthal, bringing gravelly, resigned gravitas—did you hear the story from inside the horse?), imparting history to Telemachus, or Odysseus to Calypso. Although following Homer brings challenges. The dialogue, on rare occasions, snags badly, and that’s with talky tranches of the poem cut out—the old “Nobody” trick used on the Cyclops missing.

The oral lore that The Odyssey is rooted in allows Nolan to place his thrilling set-pieces with precision. The early encounter with the cyclops is a haunting horror show. One of the film’s bigger talking points comes later when Odysseus and his crew encounter Circe (Samantha Morton), the witch reframed powerfully as one of this world’s brutalised victims. 

The Odyssey is packed with contemporary resonance, from the populist leaders—often we, along with Odysseus, follow the golden spine on the back of King Agamemnon’s helmet. Under. Here, the Trojan War that effectively destroys that world is more about trade routes than Helen (“I’m sorry for everything done in my name”).

Are there villains? Yes, notably in Robert Pattinson’s Antinous, a slimy, sleazy, seething traitorous snake on the doorstep. It could have gone wrong, but Pattinson can’t be underestimated. It’s hard to find fault in the delivery in this broad canvas, especially in the final climactic showdown when he screams for weapons one by one. Not for himself, of course, but for others to do the dirty work. 

Odysseus himself is some feat. A hounded figure from early on, flashbacks show the man above all others who knows his calling means he may never know his son. But there’s more—haunted by his actions; cursed by the understanding of what he’s done. He’s doomed to be the man to bring it all crashing down—he’s no hero, and often, brash, unpredictable, unsympathetic. Damon, ripped and fully committed, is brilliantly cast.

Otherwise, with Zeus’ mischievous rage, The Odyssey is a little overcast. Mia Goth has little to stick her teeth into. Zendaya has more to do as the wispy Athena, a lonely god, but she does get the final scene, where Nolan plays his prestige. The climax of the Trojan War is applied in layers before the pay-off to an epic structural feat. A jaw-dropping assault sits with the twisty delivery of Tenet (2020) to make its final revelations stick. How perfect for those themes to crash in the quiet moments of dialogue. For the perspective of myth, legend and threat to flip in front of us under the flickering torches.

Bringing The Odyssey to screens in full IMAX is a feat. Landing that final act, whether you take to the coda or not, is Olympus-level filmmaking.