This article is written as a response to the many negative discussions surrounding Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Interestingly, I also share some criticisms of the film. These thoughts are honest, personal, and come from my own experience as a viewer. One more thing: this time, I deliberately chose to write this article in English. I wanted these thoughts to reach a broader audience, especially those who have been passionately discussing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey around the world.
In my previous review, I gave The Odyssey a perfect score of 100%—a rare achievement that, in my opinion, represents an exceptional accomplishment for the medium of cinema. I have already discussed the reasons behind that score: the film’s extraordinary technical execution, its monumental scale, its craftsmanship, and the ambition behind Nolan’s adaptation of one of the greatest literary works in history.
However, giving a film a perfect score does not mean that it is beyond criticism.
A great cinematic work can still have elements that do not completely resonate with us. In fact, sometimes the films that inspire the strongest reactions are precisely the ones that invite deeper discussion—not only about what they achieve, but also about the choices that may not fully work.
This time, I want to focus on several major points that, for me, became the weaknesses of The Odyssey. These are not arguments to dismiss the film’s achievements, nor an attempt to claim that my interpretation is the definitive one. They are simply personal reflections on aspects of the film that created distance between myself and Nolan’s latest epic.
Too Many Big Stars
One of my biggest issues with The Odyssey is surprisingly its cast. Christopher Nolan assembling one of the most impressive ensembles in modern Hollywood sounds like a dream. In practice, however, the film often feels overloaded with familiar faces. Instead of disappearing into Homer’s mythological world, I kept recognizing the actors behind the characters.
A great ensemble works when the audience forgets who the actors are. Here, that rarely happens. Nearly every major role is played by an A-list star whose screen persona has already been firmly established through years of iconic performances. Rather than discovering Odysseus, Telemachus, Menelaus, Agamemnon, or the gods themselves, I often found myself thinking, “There’s Matt Damon,” “There’s Tom Holland,” or “There’s Anne Hathaway.”
This creates an unusual problem: anticipation. Because we know these performers so well, we already have expectations about how they will act, speak, and emote long before they even deliver a line. Their performances become predictable not because they lack talent, but because their cinematic identities are already so deeply embedded in popular culture.
Tom Holland is perhaps the clearest example. As Telemachus, I never fully believed I was watching Odysseus’ son. Instead, I kept seeing Peter Parker transported into ancient Greece. Holland naturally brings youthful sincerity, nervous energy, and earnest optimism—the very qualities that made him an excellent Spider-Man—but those same traits make Telemachus feel less like a Homeric prince and more like another variation of his Marvel persona. His familiar speech rhythms, facial expressions, and physical mannerisms are simply too recognizable.
Matt Damon faces a different challenge. As Odysseus, he certainly possesses the maturity and gravitas the role demands. Yet Damon’s long career has created a cinematic image that is difficult to escape. Whether as Jason Bourne, Captain Miller, or the astronaut in The Martian, he almost always projects the intelligent, resourceful survivor. Those qualities certainly suit Odysseus, but they also make the performance feel expected rather than revelatory. Instead of discovering a new interpretation of one of literature’s greatest heroes, we largely receive another Matt Damon hero.
Anne Hathaway brings elegance and emotional warmth, qualities she has demonstrated repeatedly throughout her career. Yet even in quieter moments, her performance rarely surprises because it remains comfortably within the range audiences already associate with her. The same can be said of several other cast members, whose performances are consistently professional but seldom transformative.
The problem becomes cumulative. Every few scenes another Oscar winner or blockbuster headliner appears, and instead of enriching the world, the film momentarily reminds us of Hollywood itself. Rather than a lived-in ancient civilization populated by believable people, The Odyssey sometimes resembles a prestige awards showcase where every role, no matter how small, is played by someone instantly recognizable.
Ironically, this abundance of talent also raises expectations to nearly impossible levels. We expect career-best performances from almost everyone simply because of who they are. Yet very few actors deliver something that ranks among the finest work of their careers. They are good—sometimes very good—but not extraordinary. None completely reinvents themselves in the way Daniel Day-Lewis, Heath Ledger, or Charlize Theron have famously done in certain transformative roles. Instead, most performers remain recognizable versions of themselves.
Christopher Nolan has often succeeded by casting actors against type or by allowing lesser-known performers to surprise audiences. Here, the opposite strategy occasionally works against the film. The audience spends as much time recognizing celebrities as inhabiting the myth. For a story that depends on transporting us into one of humanity’s oldest epics, that is a significant distraction. Sometimes, less star power creates more immersion.
The Camera Often Feels Too Static
Christopher Nolan deserves enormous credit for pushing filmmaking technology forward. The Odyssey is the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, a remarkable technical achievement that will likely influence large-scale productions for years to come. The image quality is extraordinary. Every frame possesses astonishing detail, dynamic range, and scale, while cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema once again proves why he is regarded as one of the finest cinematographers working today. Yet technological breakthroughs often come with compromises, and this is where I found myself becoming increasingly aware of the film’s limitations.
The sheer size and weight of IMAX cameras inevitably restrict where they can be placed and how freely they can move. Although the latest generation of IMAX cameras is considerably lighter than its predecessors, they remain significantly bulkier than conventional digital cinema cameras. Throughout The Odyssey, I frequently sensed those physical constraints shaping the film’s visual language. Rather than feeling invisible, the camera occasionally reminded me of its own presence, as though its position had been determined as much by technical necessity as by artistic intention.
Many scenes are photographed from relatively distant, observational perspectives. The camera often watches rather than participates. Instead of moving fluidly with the characters or gradually closing the emotional distance through intimate close-ups, it tends to remain fixed, allowing the actors to perform within carefully composed frames. The results are undeniably beautiful, but visual beauty alone does not always generate emotional involvement.
Ironically, the film reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Hitchcock also faced severe technological limitations. The massive Technicolor cameras of the time were notoriously difficult to maneuver, while each film magazine could record only around ten minutes of footage. As a result, Hitchcock designed Rope as a succession of elaborate long takes, cleverly concealing cuts whenever the magazine needed replacing. What could have become a technical handicap ultimately evolved into one of the film’s defining artistic achievements.
The difference is that Hitchcock transformed those limitations into cinematic language. Every movement of the camera in Rope serves the drama. It glides through the apartment almost like another guest, constantly redirecting our attention, revealing relationships, heightening suspense, and subtly manipulating perspective. The restriction itself became the source of the film’s creativity rather than its limitation.
In The Odyssey, I rarely experienced that same transformation. There are certainly moments of breathtaking visual composition, but the camera frequently observes events from a respectful distance instead of immersing us within them. I often felt as though I were admiring a series of magnificent tableaux rather than experiencing the drama from within. The visual strategy emphasizes grandeur, yet sometimes at the expense of intimacy.
That observation should not be interpreted as criticism of Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography. On the contrary, his compositions are consistently magnificent. Landscapes possess extraordinary scale, architecture feels monumental, and natural light is captured with astonishing richness. Many individual frames could easily stand on their own as works of fine-art photography. However, cinema is ultimately more than a collection of beautiful images.
The emotional power of cinematography lies in how shots evolve over time—how the camera gradually approaches a face, follows a movement, discovers an unexpected reaction, or quietly shifts our perspective as a scene unfolds. This is where The Odyssey occasionally left me wanting more. The film relies heavily on wide and medium-wide compositions that emphasize geography, spectacle, and physical scale. Close-ups, by comparison, feel surprisingly restrained, leaving faces relatively small within the frame even during emotionally significant exchanges.
For me, that visual distance became increasingly noticeable as the story progressed. Epic cinema certainly benefits from scale, but scale alone cannot sustain emotional investment. Some of the greatest historical epics—from Lawrence of Arabia to The Lord of the Rings—understand that after revealing the immensity of the world, the camera must eventually return to the human face. Spectacle becomes meaningful only when filtered through intimate emotion.
In The Odyssey, the balance leans more heavily toward spectacle. The world feels immense and visually overwhelming, yet the characters occasionally remain emotionally remote. I admired what I was seeing far more often than I felt connected to it. This is not a criticism of IMAX itself. Rather, it illustrates that every filmmaking technology carries its own aesthetic consequences. Shooting entirely with IMAX delivers unparalleled visual fidelity, but it also appears to sacrifice a degree of flexibility in camera placement and movement.
In the end, I found myself admiring the images more than inhabiting them. They are undeniably spectacular, but they rarely invited me to stand beside the characters. Instead, I remained an observer—impressed by the view, yet always aware of the distance.
Probably Nolan’s Most Accessible Film—And That’s Exactly My Problem
One of the things I have always admired about Christopher Nolan is his refusal to make passive entertainment. His films demand participation. They ask the audience to pay close attention, connect scattered pieces of information, question what they have seen, and often rethink the entire experience long after the credits have rolled. Watching a Nolan film has never been a passive activity. It is usually an intellectual exercise as much as an emotional one.
Whether it is the fractured chronology of Memento, the dream-within-a-dream architecture of Inception, the dual identities and rivalries of The Prestige, the intertwined timelines of Dunkirk, the relativistic structure of Interstellar, the overlapping realities of Tenet, or even the moral ambiguity of Oppenheimer, Nolan has consistently trusted his audience to do the intellectual work. His narratives rarely unfold in straight lines. Instead, they resemble intricate puzzles that gradually reveal their full meaning only after the final piece falls into place.
The Odyssey is different. In fact, it may be Nolan’s most accessible, most straightforward, and most linear film to date. That observation is not necessarily a criticism in itself. Homer’s original epic is already one of the foundational adventure stories of Western literature. Its structure is relatively simple: Odysseus survives one ordeal after another on his long journey home. Nolan wisely preserves that episodic structure instead of imposing unnecessary narrative complexity onto material that has endured for nearly three thousand years.
Yet I could not escape the feeling that he preserved it almost too faithfully. For perhaps the first time in a Christopher Nolan film, I rarely found myself trying to solve anything. There are no fractured timelines to reconstruct, no hidden perspectives waiting to be uncovered, no competing realities that force us to question what is true, and no late revelations that fundamentally reshape our understanding of everything that came before. From the very beginning, the destination feels clear. Each episode functions largely as a self-contained obstacle before the story calmly proceeds to the next chapter.
That clarity certainly makes The Odyssey easier to follow, but it also removes one of the qualities I have always associated with Nolan’s cinema: the pleasure of discovery. More importantly, I missed the philosophical uncertainty that usually lingers beneath his narratives. Nolan’s films rarely offer simple conclusions. They encourage us to continue thinking long after they end, inviting multiple interpretations rather than a single definitive answer.
Consider the endings of his previous films. The Prestige refuses to deliver a clean moral resolution. Interstellar leaves us contemplating humanity, time, love, sacrifice, and the possibility that emotion itself may transcend scientific explanation. Inception concludes with perhaps the most discussed unresolved image in contemporary cinema, while Oppenheimer, despite being rooted in historical fact, ultimately becomes less a biography than a meditation on responsibility, guilt, political power, and scientific ambition. Their stories may end, but their questions remain alive inside the audience’s mind.
By contrast, The Odyssey feels unusually definitive. Its emotional and moral trajectory is laid out with remarkable clarity. We understand who the hero is, what he must overcome, and what his journey ultimately represents. When the story reaches its conclusion, there is relatively little left to reinterpret. Rather than leaving us with lingering uncertainty or philosophical aftershocks, the film provides emotional closure. Everything arrives exactly where we expect it to.
To be clear, this is not inherently a flaw. Many great films deliberately choose clarity over ambiguity, and Homer’s epic has survived for centuries precisely because its central themes possess a timeless simplicity. Nolan’s adaptation respects that tradition, presenting the story with confidence rather than attempting to reinvent it through narrative tricks or structural experimentation.
However, Nolan has built his career on transforming familiar material into intellectually demanding experiences. Even when adapting history or established literary ideas, he usually discovers unexpected ways to challenge the audience. Here, he seems content simply to tell the story as effectively as possible. The craftsmanship is beyond question, but I often found myself admiring its execution more than wrestling with its ideas.
Even the film’s central themes—homecoming, perseverance, family, temptation, identity, leadership, and sacrifice—are presented with admirable clarity. There are moments that hint at deeper questions, particularly concerning the psychological cost of war and the burden of kingship, yet the narrative rarely lingers long enough to complicate them. Instead of allowing moral uncertainty or philosophical tension to accumulate, it steadily moves toward resolution. I kept waiting for the moment when Nolan would pull the rug out from under me—not through a conventional plot twist, but through a revelation that would fundamentally alter my understanding of everything that had come before.
That moment never arrived.
Perhaps this restraint was entirely intentional. After the narrative density of Tenet and the historical complexity of Oppenheimer, Nolan may simply have wanted to make a classical epic told in a classical manner. There is undeniable artistic value in that decision, and many viewers will undoubtedly appreciate its directness. In many ways, it may even become one of the film’s greatest strengths.
Still, as someone who has always associated Christopher Nolan with films that challenge, confuse, provoke, and reward repeated viewings, The Odyssey felt surprisingly comfortable. I was not disappointed because the film was simple. I was disappointed because it was simpler than I had expected from Christopher Nolan. Ironically, the very accessibility that will make this film resonate with a broader audience became, for me, one of its greatest weaknesses.
The Ending
Perhaps my biggest reservation about The Odyssey has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan’s filmmaking itself. Instead, it has everything to do with timing. A few months before watching The Odyssey, I had already seen The Return, Uberto Pasolini’s intimate adaptation of the final chapters of Homer’s epic starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. Comparing the two films is admittedly unfair. They differ enormously in scale, budget, and artistic ambition. Nolan delivers a mythological blockbuster, while Pasolini creates a quiet chamber drama centered almost entirely on human relationships.
Yet despite those obvious differences, I found myself constantly comparing their endings. Ironically, The Return adapts only the final portion of Homer’s epic—the homecoming to Ithaca—which occupies roughly the last quarter of the story Nolan compresses into the closing act of his nearly three-hour film. Because Pasolini devotes his entire film to Odysseus’ return, every emotional beat has room to breathe. The relationships become the story itself rather than brief pauses between moments of spectacle.
This is where The Return resonated with me more deeply. To be fair, Nolan stages the massacre of Penelope’s suitors magnificently. The sequence is tense, brutal, and meticulously choreographed. Every arrow carries weight, every movement feels purposeful, and the emotional payoff when Odysseus finally reveals himself is immensely satisfying. It is one of the strongest action sequences in the film and another reminder of Nolan’s remarkable ability to orchestrate large-scale cinematic spectacle.
However, once the battle is over, the film moves rather quickly toward its conclusion. The Return, on the other hand, chooses to linger. It understands that the true climax of The Odyssey is not the slaughter inside the great hall. It begins only after the violence has ended. The real questions are no longer about survival, but about human relationships. Can a husband and wife still recognize one another after twenty years apart? Can a man who has survived monsters, gods, storms, and war simply become a husband again? Can a family quietly resume the life that history interrupted? These are quieter questions, but they are no less dramatic.
One sequence, in particular, has stayed with me long after the film ended. When Odysseus finally enters the palace, he notices that Penelope is no longer living in the room they once shared. Almost instinctively, he walks into the adjoining chamber, searching for a familiar doorway. He slowly climbs the stairs until he reaches what used to be their bedroom. There is nothing spectacular about the scene. No swelling music, no grand revelation, no triumphant embrace. The film simply allows him to rediscover a place that once defined his life, and in doing so, reminds us how profoundly time has changed everything.
What follows is even more affecting. Odysseus and Penelope do not exchange dramatic speeches or declarations of love. Instead, they speak with remarkable restraint, like two people cautiously attempting to bridge two decades of separation. Every sentence feels simple, almost ordinary, yet every pause carries the emotional weight of everything they have lost. It is precisely through that quiet conversation that The Return reveals its greatest strength. The film understands that the deepest wounds are often expressed not through grand monologues, but through the simplest words.
The film ends not with triumph, but with conversation. Not with mythology, but with marriage. Not with the hero, but with the human being.
Nolan chooses a different path, and it is entirely consistent with the vision of his film. His ending embraces the grandeur that defines the entire production. Odysseus walks toward the sunlight, toward a place where he can remember the companions he lost throughout his impossible journey. It is visually magnificent, emotionally sincere, and perfectly aligned with Nolan’s larger mythic interpretation. In his hands, Odysseus ultimately becomes more than a husband returning home; he becomes a legendary figure whose memories belong not only to his family, but to history itself.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that creative choice. In fact, it perfectly suits the scale of the epic Nolan has spent nearly three hours constructing. Yet if I were asked to choose between the two endings, I would choose The Return every single time. After all the monsters have been defeated, all the kingdoms reclaimed, and every battle fought, what I wanted most was not one final heroic image.
I wanted one last conversation.
For me, that quiet exchange between Odysseus and Penelope says more about the cost of the journey than any spectacular final shot ever could. It reminds us that the true destination of The Odyssey is not Ithaca itself, but the fragile possibility of becoming a husband, a father, and, after surviving the impossible, an ordinary man once again. That intimacy affected me more deeply than Nolan’s final image. It may be smaller in scale, but emotionally, it felt infinitely larger.
Conclusion: Beyond Perfection and Imperfection
Everything I have discussed above regarding the weaknesses of The Odyssey should not be taken as a definitive judgment or an absolute truth. Cinema is an art form, and art rarely operates in absolutes. Every film is shaped by interpretation, every viewing by perspective, and every response by personal experience. What resonates deeply with one audience member may leave another completely unmoved, and that is precisely what makes cinema such a fascinating medium.
The story itself is a work of fiction, and the way a filmmaker chooses to interpret and transform that story is entirely an artistic decision. Christopher Nolan has every right to create his own version of Homer’s epic, just as audiences have every right to embrace it, question it, or even disagree with it. No adaptation can ever be considered the definitive version of The Odyssey because each filmmaker inevitably brings a different sensibility, worldview, and cinematic language to the same timeless material.
Despite every criticism I have raised, there is no doubt that The Odyssey remains one of the most ambitious achievements of Nolan’s career. The scale of the production, its technical innovations, and the extraordinary commitment behind its execution are nothing short of remarkable. Making a film of this magnitude requires an exceptional combination of vision, resources, craftsmanship, and perseverance. Very few filmmakers working today possess both the opportunity and the ability to attempt something so monumental, let alone accomplish it with this level of confidence.
Nolan has not simply adapted one of the greatest works of Western literature. He has created a cinematic event while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of large-format filmmaking. Years from now, The Odyssey will almost certainly be remembered not only for its storytelling, but also for the way it redefined what could be achieved with IMAX technology. That alone secures its place in contemporary film history, regardless of how individual viewers respond to its artistic choices.
Ultimately, however, the films that remain with me the longest are not merely those that entertain or demonstrate extraordinary technical mastery. They are the films that somehow capture the spirit of the era in which they are made. Great cinema never exists in isolation. It reflects the fears, contradictions, aspirations, and uncertainties of its own time, even when it tells stories set thousands of years in the past.
That is what I find most fascinating about Nolan’s The Odyssey. Beneath its ancient mythology lies a story that feels profoundly contemporary. The Trojan War may belong to antiquity, but humanity’s endless cycle of conflict, ambition, pride, vengeance, and destruction continues to define the modern world. Although our weapons have evolved and our civilizations have advanced, the impulses that drive human conflict often remain painfully unchanged.
As I write these words, wars continue to unfold across different parts of the world. Countless lives are still being lost in conflicts that, in many cases, seem driven less by necessity than by power, ideology, political ambition, or the inability of humanity to learn from its own history. In that sense, The Odyssey is not simply a story about a man trying to return home. It is also a reminder of the devastating cost of war long after the battlefield has fallen silent.
Perhaps that is the film’s greatest relevance today. Odysseus’ journey is not merely about defeating monsters or surviving impossible trials. It is about carrying the emotional burden of everything he has witnessed and searching for meaning after unimaginable loss. His homecoming ultimately becomes a metaphor for humanity’s own search—for peace after violence, wisdom after suffering, and hope after destruction.
What we need today is not merely the intervention of gods or divine forces to rescue us from ourselves. What we need is the willingness to reflect on our own choices, the humility to learn from history, and the courage to imagine a future that does not endlessly repeat its mistakes.
That question is as urgent today as it was when Homer first told the story nearly three thousand years ago. And perhaps that is why The Odyssey continues to endure—not because it belongs to the past, but because it continues to speak to the present.
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No adaptation can ever be considered the definitive version of The Odyssey because each filmmaker inevitably brings a different sensibility, worldview, and cinematic language to the same timeless material.
The post What I Don’t Like About The Odyssey appeared first on montasefilm. montasefilm
