The Odyssey

 

Christopher Nolan’s epic reconceptualization of Homer’s The Odyssey has an impressive creative breadth that will undoubtedly put it in contention for industry awards next year.

But this rendering of the ancient story of Greek hero Odysseus’s bedeviled journey home after winning the Trojan War with grit and clever invention might leave some audience members wanting more. Not more spectacle, more narrative depth.

Matt Damon leads the large, eclectic and energetic cast through the familiar perils — some introduced by the hero’s hubris, others by punishing, begrudging deities. The actor’s challenge is not unlike that of his character — wrangling large, seemingly impossible tasks, over bitter terrain, through unforgiving elements in pursuit of an elusive goal.

Damon and the film’s other principals — Anne Hathaway as wife Penelope, Tom Holland as son Telemachus, Robert Pattinson as suitor Antinous and John Leguizamo as Odysseus‘ servant and Telemachus’ teacher Emaeus — capably push through Homer’s sprawling story with Nolan’s modernized dialogue and against the film auteur’s exquisite backgrounds, adding some philosophical aspects absent from previous sword and sandal versions, like Italian director Mario Camerini’s Ulysses (1954), which starred Kirk Douglas.

And it’s those resonating narrative bits that lift the picture above its magic and mayhem into the realm of humanity and morality. The movie could have used more.

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