With his 2023 movie Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan cemented his place in cinema history. The filmmaker had been a fan favorite for two decades by that point, but his true blank check epic delivered not only one of the biggest hits of the year but finally propelled the director to Oscar glory, winning two statues, including Best Director and Best Picture. As if the director of The Dark Knight trilogy couldn’t get any more clout, the success of that film meant his next movie could be whatever he wanted it to be, so when the filmmaker confirmed his next project would be a real epic and a new adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, fans were ready.
Nolan has proven himself time and time again as a filmmaker, but with his take on The Odyssey, he would be marrying his penchant for an epic scope (shooting the entire film entirely on IMAX with a major ensemble cast) with a genre that he’s never dabbled in (the fantasy epic). Now, though we’re still eleven days away from the film’s actual release, we finally know how that marriage works as the first reactions to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey have made their way online, ranging from “utterly riveting” to “Christopher Nolan’s most mature and sensitive” movie, with one critic specifically saying: “He didn’t let us down.”
First Reactions to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Praise New Epic
Critic Simon Thompson called Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey “flawless filmmaking” that’s “every inch as epic as you’d expect,” adding that, “Leading a stellar cast, Matt Damon gives Odysseus everything in a career-best powerhouse performance. Robert Pattinson is outstanding as Antinous and John Leguizamo’s Eumaeus is sublime.”
Fandango’s Erik Davis called the film “an absolute triumph and a crowning cinematic achievement,” but added that one of the most surprising elements was that it feels like Nolan is experimenting with horror. He writes: “What really surprised me is how much he embraces horror. Some of the film’s biggest moments are genuinely unsettling, adding a whole new dimension to his filmmaking while never losing sight of the humanity at the story’s core.”
Critic David Ehrlich had high praise for the film, but was quick to note that it’s not Nolan’s best:
Some critics have even noted that they’ve had the chance to see the film twice already, noting that the 70MM IMAX presentation is clearly the way to go.
Though these first reactions are exclusively for social media, with full reviews not coming until the week The Odyssey is released, we can perhaps glean that the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score will be pretty high. For comparison’s sake, Nolan’s two highest-rated movies of all-time are Memento and The Dark Knight, which share a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but Oppenheimer is right behind them with 93%, with Insomnia and Dunkirk both there as well with 92% scores each. Following, Nolan’s first film, has an 85% score alongside Batman Begins, with Inception and The Dark Knight Rises both sitting at 87%. Only three of Nolan’s movies have scores in the 70s, with The Prestige sitting at 77%, Interstellar at 73%, and Tenet at 70%.
Allowing reactions like these to be released eleven days out from the actual premiere of The Odyssey, which notably first sold some tickets a year ago, is a great sign from Universal Pictures. Now that quotes that can be attributed to specific people are floating out in the world, and are almost certainly being plastered onto TV spots that will air during tonight’s United States and Belgium World Cup match, the narrative is starting to formulate about the quality of the film. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a new Christopher Nolan movie is getting a rave response, but the timing is perfect, as audience members will no doubt flock to get their tickets soon.
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