Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is visually epic but emotionally adrift

For a story that is 3,000 years old and has been referenced innumerable times since the advent of the moving picture, it’s striking that The Odyssey has not been adapted into a film more often. Christopher Nolan’s new film is, depending on your definition, just the fourth time in film history that someone has attempted to tell the original story (oddly, the third film - The Return - came out just two years ago).

Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, who has been gone from his home of Ithaca for over 20 years. Waiting at home for him is his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), as well as a hall full of suitors - most notably Antinous (Robert Pattinson) - who are hoping that Penelope will finally believe that Odysseus is dead and choose to marry one of them.

In typical Nolan fashion, the film goes back-and-forth in time often to show what has happened to Odysseus in the past two decades. His sea voyages with his crew have him attacking Troy using the legendary Trojan Horse; taking on the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin); trying to escape the clutches of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton); living with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron); communing with the vision of Athena (Zendaya); and more.

Nolan, who wrote and directed the epic film, has a clear reverence for the material and, perhaps more than any current filmmaker, has the chops to make the sprawling story feel coherent. With a plethora of characters who have names that take some time to understand for those not familiar with the ancient tale, it’s extremely tough to wrangle everything and everyone together, and Nolan and his team make that trick seem relatively easy.

However, there’s a difference between making the story comprehensible and making it compelling, and Nolan is not as successful on this front. As portrayed in this film, it’s difficult to care whether Odysseus ever finds his way home. His connection with Penelope and Telemachus is tenuous, at best, and his status as a hero is called into question on multiple occasions. Complicated protagonists are nothing new, but in a story where the hero’s journey is the whole point, Nolan fails to make the quest all encompassing.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some standout moments along the way. The sequence in Polyphemus’ cave is tremendous, as are a few other scenes in which Nolan’s reported reliance on practical effects make you wonder how the crew accomplished what they did. Damon has said this is the hardest movie he’s ever made, and that effort shows up in every scene, especially those on the water.

At 56 years old, Damon is getting close to elder statesman status in Hollywood, and he ably embodies the role of the respected and feared leader. Hathaway, Holland, and Pattinson get the next most screentime, and each makes their character interesting if not mesmerizing. The murderer’s row of the supporting cast - Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Morton, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, and more - give each scene a nice sheen whether or not their individual arcs make sense.

While the technical achievements of Nolan and his team in The Odyssey are admirable and occasionally awe-inspiring, the story he lays out is not quite as overwhelming. The structure he chose to use doesn’t allow the story to overcome the episodic nature of Odysseus’ brutal journey, keeping big emotions mostly at bay.

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The Odyssey opens in theaters on July 17.