Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is out in the world now, at least for the film press, and the first reactions landed with the kind of force that usually belongs to an event movie that knows it has people watching. Early viewers called the Odyssey movie a staggering achievement, a flawless piece of filmmaking, and a triumph that already feels larger than the usual awards-season chatter.
The timing matters because the film opens in theaters on July 17, and the reaction cycle is already doing what it does best: turning curiosity into a test of expectation. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, leading a cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, and Jon Bernthal, while the story follows Odysseus’s years-long attempt to get home after the end of the Trojan War. For readers searching now, the answer is simple: the movie has been seen, and the early verdict is that Nolan has made something huge.
The praise has been broad, but it has not been identical. Peri Nemiroff called it a filmmaking feast and a grand, gripping rendition of Homer’s epic. Andrew J. Salazar used the word staggering achievement. Simon Thompson went further, calling it flawless filmmaking and saying it is every inch as epic as expected. He also singled out Damon for what he described as a career-best powerhouse performance, with Robert Pattinson outstanding as Antinous and John Leguizamo sublime as Eumaeus. Jazz Tangcay called it an astonishing achievement and a triumphant, spectacular epic, while Clayton Davis said Damon leads with grit and Tom Holland brings sensitivity and heart.
That said, the raves are not completely unbroken. David Ehrlich said the last act rewards the journey, but also noted some clunkiness along the way, which is the sort of note that keeps a first reaction from turning into a blanket victory lap. Even so, Erik Davis called the movie an absolute triumph and a crowning cinematic achievement, and he said Pattinson leans all the way into the character’s villainy. Put together, the first wave of responses suggests a film built on scale, pressure, and performance rather than polish alone.
The larger reason this version of The Odyssey is drawing so much attention is its form as much as its story. Nolan said he shot more than 2 million feet of film over 91 days last year, and he has described the project as a search for gaps in cinematic culture: a mythological work he had not seen made with the weight and credibility of an A-budget Hollywood IMAX production. He also said the film is the first narrative feature ever shot entirely with IMAX cameras. That combination of old epic, modern scale, and technical ambition is what the first viewers are reacting to. The real test now is whether that same charge holds when audiences meet it in theaters on July 17.
