7/7 🪩🪩🪩🪩🪩🪩🪩
Christopher Nolan has done it again.
The Odyssey is an astonishing cinematic spectacle—one that left me breathless more times than I could count. Between the incredible performances, surreal practical effects, monumental scale, and sheer ambition behind every frame, this feels like one of those rare blockbusters that becomes more than just a box-office success. It’s a cinematic achievement.
I would go as far as saying The Odyssey feels important to cinema in the way Titanic once did: an enormous, crowd-pleasing spectacle that simultaneously pushes filmmaking forward and reminds audiences why some movies simply need to be experienced in a theater.
If there is any justice this awards season, The Odyssey will be a major contender for Best Ensemble. This cast is filled with Olympians of acting. Nolan assembled the kind of roster almost any filmmaker would dream of having, and remarkably, no one feels like they is simply there because of their name. The performances across the board are committed, intense, and completely immersed in this world.
Knowing how demanding shooting with IMAX film cameras can be makes the performances even more impressive. I heard they only had three minutes of filming before they had to change the canister, which forced everyone to be their best all of the time. There is an immediacy to so many scenes where it feels like everyone had to be completely locked in and that intensity translates directly to the screen. I was on the edge of my seat both times I watched the film.
Ludwig Göransson’s score is beautifully crafted and absolutely essential to the experience. I’ve increasingly come to believe Göransson is becoming the John Williams of this generation of filmmaking. He has an undeniable ability to create music that doesn’t simply accompany a movie. It becomes part of its identity. His work here is truly outstanding. The score knows when to overwhelm you, when to create tension, and when to pull back and let the imagery speak for itself. Paired with Nolan’s enormous visuals, it helps give The Odyssey the feeling of witnessing an actual myth unfold in front of you.
The visuals are something film students will be studying for decades. There are images throughout The Odyssey that reminded me of the great epics of the 1940s and 1950s—movies that filmmakers still study today because of their framing, scale, lighting, staging, and craftsmanship. Nolan takes that old-school philosophy and pushes it into modern blockbuster filmmaking. The practical effects in particular are staggering. There are moments where the scale of what is physically happening on screen becomes almost difficult to comprehend. It makes CGI sometimes feel unnecessary or even like a shortcut because there is something fundamentally different about watching real environments, real elements, real sets, and real people interact in front of a camera. Even though I wasn’t able to see the IMAX 70mm film presentation, the digital premium-format screenings still left me in awe of the chaos unfolding across the screen. And somehow, despite its enormous scale, Nolan never loses his eye for composition.
What impressed me most is that the spectacle never completely overtakes the journey. This is obviously a story operating on a mythological scale, but Nolan understands that spectacle only works when we care about the people moving through it. Beneath the battles, landscapes, danger, and larger-than-life imagery is a deeply human journey. That balance is what keeps The Odyssey from becoming simply a collection of incredible set pieces. The scale is enormous, but there is always an emotional thread pulling us forward.
There honestly isn’t much more I can say without diminishing the experience of discovering it for yourself. The Odyssey is exactly the kind of movie that reminds me why I love going to the movies. It is ambitious. It is overwhelming. It is beautifully performed. It is technically astonishing. And most importantly, it feels designed from the ground up to be experienced communally on an enormous screen.
GO SEE IT before it’s too late. Watch it on the largest screen you can possibly find. Your television at home will not do this movie justice.
Emotion: 7/7
Editing & Story: 7/7
Visuals: 7/7
This review represents the independent opinions of the author and is intended for editorial, commentary, and criticism purposes. The Odyssey and all related characters, imagery, footage, trademarks, logos, and intellectual property are the property of Universal Pictures, Universal Studios, Syncopy, and their respective copyright and trademark holders. No ownership of copyrighted material associated with the film is claimed or implied.