THE ODYSSEY Non-Spoiler REVIEW

[00:00:00]Internets, hello you absolute lovelies.

[00:00:02]Let's talk all about the Odyssey. This is going to be a non-spoiler review, but I do want to do a spoiler review down the line. So, even though this is a thousands years old poem, there are things in the third act and the way that Nolan uses non-linear storytelling that actually recontextualize the Odyssey entirely for me. There are elements of this like remixing a song or playing a cover or, you know, synthesizing certain beats that will bring out other elements that I really think changes this poem for me in a way I did not expect. So, I do want to do a spoiler review, and I also in this review at the end I want to talk about the controversy of the lead-up. I hope that doesn't become part of the legacy, but I do want to address a few of the things that have been insane in the lead-up to the film. So, we'll talk about that near the end of this review, but getting into this review, getting into this movie, it is all of the things that make you want to speak in poster quotes. It is without hyperbole an epic, a classic, a masterpiece. It is all of the reasons we love the movies. It is full of grand scope and wonder and awe. It is full of just cinematic glory. And and that is what I want people to get out of the lead-up to the film is there is nothing quite like seeing this in a theater.

[00:01:26]There are movies that will remember what we were doing before and after we saw them. There are movies will remember their theatrical release of like I was there for that. This is a Jurassic Park, a 2001, a Citizen Kane, a pick your, you know, generational experience. And I honestly think that this movie might be what Nolan and Damon and Hathaway and Holland, pick your character, become known for with the test of time. Now, obviously, Matt Damon has been a number of huge characters and Tom Holland is currently still Spider-Man. That's how powerful these performances are. There's something so biblical about this. There's something so Shakespearean about this and there's something so full of what storytelling can be that it, I think, will be even better on second watch. Now, I usually do an out-of-theater review. I usually want to tell my initial first thoughts, but this movie left me so gobsmacked and so reverent for its story, I've waited 3 days. This is me right now at 8:52 a.m.

[00:02:36]before I drop this at 9:00 a.m. cuz I wanted to really experience how I felt over time and this film has only grown in my heart. I've been thinking about it non-stop. So, the film itself has this incredible journey, an odyssey, if you will, of exploring emotions and themes really intimately and then the effect of those emotions and themes because of the effect of action. And and I explained that poorly, but the action always has consequences and the emotion is always what anchors us back into the story.

[00:03:15]And I really love that by the end of this film some of the quotes are going to haunt me and register for a very long time because of the impact of the visuals.

[00:03:28]The sacking of Troy and the experience of what each of these major beats in the odyssey itself is are so emotionally impactful, but also visually staggering, whether it's for action, whether it's for horror, and there is a lot of horror in this film, whether it's for what we are seeing that we know the myth of. So, for example, the Trojan horse is probably the most iconic imagery out of this film. And I thought about, you know, what that must have been even in myth and like the size and the scale and the trickery and the you know, you pull in this horse. The idea of a Trojan horse has become part of our cultural zeitgeist. Like I say it all the time with comic book content. I say, you know, this is like a Trojan horse for morality. It sneaks in these stories into the spectacle, right? I use the concept of Trojan horse all the time, but I never thought of, and this isn't a spoiler again, this is thousand year old old tale, but I want you to get the reframing I'm talking about. I never considered the horrors of being in the horse and the time that would be in what it would be like to experience it from the inside. What it would be and I thought about it just like in passing, but to live within that moment, I don't want to give anything away about the storytelling, but the way the inside the horse is told, the way the element of the soldiers is told, and then the reframing of the sacking of Troy from one timeline element to later timeline elements completely recontextualizes the whole thing. So, it's those things that I want to talk about in the spoiler review, but those things that Nolan is doing so masterfully. His command of the camera, his comfort with telling a story this big. And I will admit this story is a little too big for a movie. Um the first half of the first act, I definitely found myself a little concerned. And then there is you guys know there's a cyclops in this.

[00:05:34]Basically from the cyclops onward, I was just in this non-stop rhythm and admiration of its cadence, of its pacing, of its of its chosen, just audacity to be as big as it is. So, that first beat, the first half of the first act, maybe the first 20 minutes, maybe just shy of the first half, is uh trying to be uh the Iliad uh catch-up. It's trying to make sure elements of Troy are told in a fair way. And I think I just struggled the first viewing, and I I I I cannot wait to see this again, but the first viewing with just um how much had to be told, and there's an adjustment of seeing these iconic actors in this type of movie. This movie doesn't quite feel like a movie. Like some movies are like you settle into the theater and you're having a really great experience of just watching a movie. This almost feels like a pane of glass into a world. It almost feels like a another time is able to be viewed in a modern window. It's something different, and I'm not sure if that's the frame, because I saw it in beautiful 70-mm IMAX that stays the proper frame the whole time. It doesn't adjust. And maybe it's the clarity of vision, like the actual both in Nolan sense, but also like the camera quality. It's It's so clear and crisp and vi- There's something about this film, maybe it's the costumes on these actors, but there's an adjustment to seeing them in this setting, and that took a little bit. But once I was in, and that's not for everyone, but it's for most most of the actors. Once I was in, it really just transformed the theatrical experience for me of like the awe felt like a present tense for a story that is so old, and the topical nature of how Nolan is telling this story is staggering, because you feel like you're just watching another world.

[00:07:32]I I don't want to give away the third act's thematic resonance, cuz I do feel like that does kind of undermine the experience of living it yourself. But I will say, just in broad strokes, and and this is what the Odyssey is about. And I saved this for this deep in the review, and then after that I want to talk about a few actors, then I want to talk about the controversy. But, I saved this for this deep in the review cuz I'm hoping people don't mind the context of the Odyssey spoilers, but our humanity and our sense of community and hospitality, and how we treat others is what makes us human. It is what we need to remember about us. So, this feels like a spiritual sequel to Oppenheimer in so many ways because Oppenheimer is the consequences of a man's action that starts the spark that ruins the world.

[00:08:24]The Odyssey is someone experiencing the feeling of the consequences of those action in a very interesting look back at that spark. And that's what the Odyssey story has always been, but there are ways it's told that reframe so much and somehow made it so 2026.

[00:08:47]There's There's moments in this. There's lines of dialogue in this. There's a There's a sequence with I think this I mean, it's so hard to review a movie that's based off something so old and not spoil. There is I'll just say horror elements to this.

[00:09:00]And there's a line about disguises, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks because it is so much how I feel about humanity now. And I've been really struggling with me as a person wanting to be the optimist I I have at most of my life been, but struggling with my beliefs in humanity's inherent goodness and beliefs in people being what I have always thought them to be.

[00:09:28]And And there's a There's a really beautiful moral anchor in that sentence about disguises that's going to stick with me for a long And it's those beats that I've been so overwhelmed by with the storytelling and how it's told and how topical the last act is. And I I truly think the third act of this film is the strongest third act in a Christopher Nolan film.

[00:09:50]I don't This isn't my favorite Nolan film on first watch. I do need to see it a second time, especially for that adjustment period. But, it is, I think, his strongest third act.

[00:10:00]I got emotional in Oppenheimer. This is the first Nolan film that's made me cry.

[00:10:06]I don't cry often in movies. I'd like that outlet. I'd like that freedom to I'd like to be able to have that, but I I struggle to, and this movie just broke me both in its in its singular moments of storytelling, but its sweeping scope.

[00:10:19]I think the overwhelm of emotion then culminated in some brutal truths of humanity and and my own journey of where I'm at in life that really got me emotional in a way that I wasn't expecting.

[00:10:33]Let's Let's talk about the actors real quick. And then, I really want to do a spoiler review. So, I need to see this film another time.

[00:10:39]I do think the elements of hospitality were told in a way that I experienced it in such a deeper I mean, that's honestly like we're going to talk about the word woke.

[00:10:48]We're going to talk about this culture war [ __ ] We're going to talk about all that. I think the film isn't even woke because of casting. I think it's woke because it has empathy, and I think that empathy is inherently a being awake and aware concept. The word woke's been appropriated from black culture into truth snowflake culture, which is the people that cannot understand empathy.

[00:11:15]And the film's about empathy. So, it's it's interesting that a lot of the controversy is around casting when the actual woke is about giving a [ __ ] and and about being a human being. But, some of the themes about homecoming are so strong, and and that really resonated with me. As I get older, I'm I'm feeling that draw of home. Um the hospitality element, obviously a huge one. Uh to me, intelligence over brute strength is the separation of the Iliad versus the Odyssey. And And the Iliad might be for certain people, but I love the follow-up uh about wit and intelligence. And I think this film really conveys that while also adding emotional intelligence. And you see emotional intelligence increase through the film in certain characters. And you see the punishment of emotional intelligence and lack of intelligence happening as an actual punishment, whether it's from the gods, whether it's uh you know, from the consequences of actions. But I love intelligence as something that is rewarded in both, you know, intellectual and emotional senses. Um what loyalty means is such an incredible thing in this, whether it's to each other, to family, to home, to the gods, what betraying the gods is. And to me, the gods, and this is definitely going to be part of my spoiler review, the gods as what your own legacy is, but also the gods in an abstract and linear concept.

[00:12:39]There's so much about the gods that I think are so interesting, especially with the desire of the gods and betraying them, but whether that's the, you know, man is god, god is man concept, like we are our own uh divine entities and the more traditional, like, you know, what what Zeus is pissed. Like, there's so much in that as well that I want to dive into.

[00:12:59]But let's talk about the actors. Um Matt Damon, for me, was the actor that at no point did I think, "Man, Jason Bourne, you know, pick your character of Matt Damon."

[00:13:12]Um I did not think of Goodwill Hunting at any point, and I'm from Boston.

[00:13:16]Matt Damon as Odysseus is an all-time performance. Matt Damon as Odysseus is a performance where he might now be known as Odysseus in the books of filmmaking going forward, right? Like, in the present, he's only been in Odyssey S4 whenever you're watching this plus how many days.

[00:13:32]Um but I think when we look back at his career, like this is a career-defining performance. This is a that guy played Odysseus in the same way we look at like certain Brando performances, with the way we look at certain like you know, Charlton Heston as Moses kind of thing.

[00:13:46]Like that is though he did lots. Like there are there certain iconic performances. Um Tom Holland, he's talked about this is the last time he can really play a boy. The it's so important that Tom Holland's energy is exactly what it is in this film, that young boyish face and also the like he's 30 now. The the that bridge to becoming a man is the arc of his character, but it's so reflected on his face and how we perceive Tom Holland and like what that actor and that man and that public figure has gone through these last years is so integral to the storytelling. So that's a very interesting duo, but Matt Damon, man, uh what what a performance.

[00:14:21]I'd say the MVPs for me are Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Robert Pattinson.

[00:14:24]Anne Hathaway brings so much pain and depth and and just staggering beauty and lived-in emotion to this. It is wonderful. I love Anne Hathaway in this.

[00:14:37]Uh Robert Pattinson is so hateable and sniveling and he's the lack of emotional intelligence and intelligence I was speaking to earlier that is just so wonderful to watch. Um he's I mean, he's one of my favorite actors right now working, but I usually I'm so like I like Pattinson as a person so much, even when he plays unlikable, I'm usually like still rooting for him in some odd way, like Good Time and certain things.

[00:14:57]But man, he is so delightfully hateable here. Uh Charlize Theron as Calypso, Charlize Theron as Calypso is she's not getting talked about a lot in a lot of these reviews cuz this cast is so stacked, but there's so much soft intelligent warmth / moments of confused deceit. Not confused on her part, but how it's meant to cause you to feel a certain kind of way that is so wonderful. Zendaya as Athena, there's a reason Nolan said perfect and gave her that note that upset a lot of the cast cuz my gods is she staggering and so just full of presence and just you're mesmerized by her in such a fascinating way. Samantha Morton as Circe is a series of scenes that will stick with me for life. There's imagery in those scenes, there's moments of both emotional and and and just visual impact that are absolutely stunning. Incredible what they got away with practically. Uh Himesh Patel, Himesh Patel is uh huge in this movie. He is so important in this film. I wish he was getting a little bit more press cuz of how good he is in this. He is essential to everything Odysseus goes on emotionally and physically and he's incredible. Agamemnon's Benny Safdie.

[00:16:07]When he's on screen, it's insane. The awe of negative There's like such a such a pall around him that is so so powerful. Ryan Hurst as Mentor has actually changed. I know what Mentor was. I know where it came from, but him actually playing Mentor has really reframed what that word means in my vocabulary. Um Elliot Page as Sinon and Helen of Troy Miss Lupita Nyong'o are all the controversial [ __ ] we're going to go into next. Uh but good god are they incredible. Um let's talk about those things and then let's wrap this out of here cuz this is a long-ass review and I want you guys to go see it.

[00:16:39]I was trying to give no spoilers. I think I've succeeded. And then I want to do a spoiler review. Uh let's talk about the internet being dumb. Um there is a fascinating thing right now where before a movie comes out, it is more important for people to talk about their [ __ ] than the movie itself. And in Shakespearean times there was the casting of people where race and sex was not tied to the character. And it's insane that we've devolved so much from those times.

[00:17:14]The right person to cast for the role is the right person to cast for the role.

[00:17:19]And Lupita Nyong'o is one of, if not the most staggeringly beautiful person alive. And I know beauty is subjective.

[00:17:27]I I I get that.

[00:17:30]But she is a goddess that walks among us. And to have Helen of Troy masterfully played by her, and to have people not see this film, I don't understand a level of racism where you're just publicly racist. I don't understand how Well, we've we've devolved as a society, which is why this film is so topical. But we've devolved as a society where like you can just say like you can't do that. This This is a Greek character. Matt Damon's an Irish dude from Boston. No one's upset that Irish white guy isn't played by a Greek guy. But a black woman playing Helen of Troy is a controversial thing. That is insane.

[00:18:07]Uh and that to me has just made the themes and and truths of this film so much more relevant is that there's a a cultural war leading up to it. That's absolutely mind-blowing that this film can just be like, "Well, we started failing because of this incident." And and I again, I can't wait for my spoiler review, but the the way the rollout happened ties directly into how things go in the film. And it's just disgusting to see that we're still dealing with this in 2026. This year sounds like the future. 2026 sounds like, "Oh my god, we're living approaching Blade Runner and shit." And yet we're still like, "I don't know. That's a fictional character written by a probably fictional poet thousands of years ago.

[00:18:54]She's not Greek." Neither is anyone practically else in the cast. But what are we talking about? And this is [ __ ] gross. And and this staggeringly beautiful woman being not worthy of being Helen of Troy in these people's eyes. Uh I just I don't understand that version of humanity. And then Elliot Page, I will totally, completely I'll I'll say watching Elliot Page, there's a sequence of them uh with hell or, you know, Hades, the after that is so fascinatingly full of depth that you have to actually experience the whole of the story through a few lines of dialogue. And I'm really dancing around language here to try to make sure it's not a spoiler for, again, Thousand Year Old Poem.

[00:19:50]But I don't know many people that could have conveyed this. And the idea that people don't want Elliot Page to play a role when so few actors could do that role is such a insane like abuse of of humanity's understanding of talent and like the depth of emotion required for a role like that. And like when I see an actor as a as a young actor to an adult actor, there's an adjustment. I I This is my first time seeing Elliot Page. Uh I grew up watching Ellen Page. There is an adjustment, but that's the only adjustment for me. And and that's why And apologies, I I said she is I'm used to Ellen Page, and that's how I associate. But that was the adjustment was like seeing uh you know, a a kid that's like two or three, and you're like, "Oh, that's that was them." Uh or seeing like a teen actor, and suddenly they're in their 30s, there is an adjustment. That's the experience I had, but it was in appreciation of like this is talent and performance and and awesome. So it's it's it's just odd to me. Like I don't think of the synons of soldier, I don't think of shoulders, you know, junk um when I'm watching a movie. So if you do, I think you can take that up with your gr- you know, your What are they What's that app?

[00:21:12]Grinder profile. You can take it up with your Grinder profile because that's the conversation with the person you're wondering about their junk. Like that I don't think it's has anything to do with the work. So, if you're thinking about a soldier's junk, you're probably in the wrong movie and then you should express that in other ways and maybe that'll make you feel better. But, the movie itself left me in awe. It the controversy she sucks cuz it's exhausting, but that is always the way. It won't be remembered in a couple years, but the movie will be remembered I think forever and that's kind of the same place that these people operate in. Like grifters are irrelevant in no time at all. Art is forever.

[00:21:50]These people are going to have their moment of making money off making insane thumbnails and it's interesting to me that like shilling which is misused by the way. The word shill is to trick and deceive.

[00:22:04]That's another video, but people that are are trying to make content which causes us jobs, right? Like you a job is something that makes you money. People that are celebrating art. People that are wanting a film to succeed and to do their job and have those films succeed, especially if they're not for working for the studio, but people that are just making money off the film's success cuz when a movie does well, your review does well, your content does well, etc. are seen in a certain light, but people that are making all this money because they want a film to be the failure that they are is seen differently. Making money off failure, those guys, but making money off success, it's an interesting thing we're living in culturally and I think the movie touches on some of that as well in a more abstract way, but there's a lot of things I want to talk about in a spoiler review. This has been a long review.

[00:22:53]I am excited to talk about it clearly even more, so I'm going to see this film again and try to get a spoiler review up one of these days very soon. Hopefully over the weekend, maybe even a live stream. We'll see, cuz I this one really hit me.

[00:23:04]Um it is in my top five of the year. I got to figure out where it lands. I think it's in my top three. I just like I said, got to figure out where it lands. It is a masterpiece. It is an epic. It is a classic. It is [ __ ] awesome. And uh I hope you guys enjoyed this very long review. Very a lot longer than my normal. And please leave a comment. Let me know what you thought of this review. Let me know what you thought of the Odyssey if you've seen it. Let me know what you think of some of the themes and bigger ideas, cuz that's what conversations are about are are these big ideas and themes and and what art can bring about to bring people together uh under Zeus's law. Uh we need to get back to some hospitality and some sharing and some some humanity and some connection. I appreciate you guys. Uh press that like. Join my community uh hitting the subscription bell and get in that message board comment section, whatever [ __ ] called. Get in there.

[00:23:51]Let me know what you guys thought and I'll see you for a spoiler review. If you want one, let me know down below.

[00:23:55]And lots of big stuff to come.

[00:23:57]Spider-Man's around the corner. Lots of big things this summer. But this one I'm going to this one's going to stick with me for quite a while. Um it's crazy that there's so much happening right now, but this one feels like I would just like got hit by lightning. Uh I appreciate y'all. I will see you very very soon for much more.

[00:24:12]And let me know if you want that spoiler review. Bye. Be good to each other.

[00:24:14]Please. Please.