Matt Damon
“THE ODYSSEY” My rating: B (In theaters)
172 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Didn’t love it.
Didn’t hate it.
What can I say, folks? So much hyperbole — both positive and negative — has been heaved at Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” that it’s just about impossible to approach this epic with anything like a completely open mind.
What I took away from my experience was a sense of awe at the technical precision on display (there’s not a shot in the film that doesn’t seem to have been labored over ), a real sense of a journey that covers two decades, some riveting set pieces and a frustrating lack of emotional involvement. (I mean, the most intense feeling is delivered by a dying dog.)
The film is peppered with familiar faces, but most of the characters are barely skin deep.
It doesn’t feel like the film has a real point of view…yet it never feels like a slog. There’s always something interesting to look at.
Noland has never worn his heart on his sleeve. Most of his non-“Batman” films — from “Memento” through “The Prestige,” “Inception” and “Oppenheimer” — have been about ideas. Human emotions tend to take a back seat.
In this case it’s all about the journey. This is both the yarn’s strength and, for dramatic purposes, its big drawback. Homer’s poem is no well-made drama. It’s a series of encounters — sirens, Titans, cyclops, whirlpool — without a gripping through line (except, of course, the desire of Matt Damon’s Odysseus to get back home).
Nolan’s screenplay seems unsure of just what to make of the ancient Greeks’ world view. There’s much talk of what Zeus expects of men (in breaking that moral code Odysseus carries the burden of guilt), but the gods themselves rarely make an appearance. Zendaya does show up periodically as the goddess Athena, engaging Odysseus in conversation…but it’s pretty clear she’s a figment of his imagination. At least, none of his comrades seem to notice her.
Like just about every Nolan film, “The Odyssey” messes with time. The film is arranged non-chronologically. The yarn drifts back and forth between Odysseus’ long voyage, the siege of Troy, his life before the Trojan war, and the travails experienced back in Ithaca by his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland). It’s one of the smarter things Nolan has done to the material, with the past present and future all seeming to unfurl simultaneously. It keeps you slightly off balance and paying close attention.
Highlights? Well the segment with the cyclops is genuinely awesome. So is the vision of the Trojan horse, the wooden statue in which Odysseus and his men secret themselves in order to enter the city.
Damon is certainly watchable as our hero, but I rarely got a sense of Odysseus’ inner life.
Hathaway has a few moments of genuine fierceness as Odysseus’ abandoned queen. Samantha Morton is riveting as Circe, the man-hating witch who transform’s Odysseys’ crew into swine. John Leguizamo is quite good as the aged blind herdsman whose loyalty to his master spans the years.
Anne Hathaway
Absolutely loved Ruth De Jong’s art direction, especially Odysseus’ hilltop palace in Ithica and the cave where worshippers pay homage to Athena.
Ludwig Goransson’s musical score is a hugely effective blend of sonic rumblings and primitive-sounding whistles and drums.
Didn’t like much of the sound mix, which rendered at least half the dialogue unintelligible.
Also, Nolan’s appropriation of modern language — did the ancient Greeks really use phrases like “okay” and refer to their fathers as “my dad”? — took me out of the moment.
And while we’re at it, very little of Nolan’s dialogue was memorable. The Odyssey is great poetry, yet there’s nothing the least poetic about these conversations.
Bottom line: I don’t regret devoting three hours to watching ”The Odyssey.”
And I’m in no hurry to repeat the experience.
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