Quick Synopsis: Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, undergoes a long and perilous journey home after the Trojan War and encounters mythical beings as he attempts to reunite with his wife Penelope
I don’t think I need to see another Nolan film ever again. My problems with Nolan are well documented: his scripts often lack emotion, while his dialogue somehow manages to both overexplain everything and leave you wondering what anyone actually means (as perfectly encapsulated in this video). Of course, actually hearing that dialogue has always been another challenge thanks to Nolan’s sound mixing (a problem that’s cropped up throughout his career, but reached its peak with Tenet). The result has always been films I admire more than I actually connect with.
None of that is why I don’t want to see another Nolan film. I just wanted to lull you into a false sense of security. I don’t want to see another Nolan film because The Odyssey feels like what his career has been building towards. The fragmented timelines in Dunkirk, the sense of foreboding that hangs over Oppenheimer, the manipulation of geography in Inception, his exploration of mythic heroes from Batman. Everything has been building towards this moment. Seen in retrospect, the rest of his filmography feels like practice for The Odyssey. Homer’s epic demands a filmmaker obsessed with time, perspective, spectacle and impossible journeys, qualities Nolan has spent twenty-five years refining
The internet has spent an impressive amount of time arguing about the historical accuracy of a film based on a myth. Some of it has simply been misinformation, claims that Elliot Page is playing Achilles, despite actually playing Sinos. Some of it has been uglier, with people claiming Lupita Nyong’o is “too black” to play Helen of Troy (despite being one of the most strikingly beautiful actors working today, which feels rather relevant when casting Helen). Then there’s the debate over accents, with complaints that everyone speaks in historically inaccurate American accents, rather than the obviously much more historically accurate British ones. I didn’t invent that last argument, by the way. James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter was so annoyed by the accents that he wrote an entire article about it, arguing that the modern British accent is “traditionally considered universally pleasing and ‘just foreign enough'” to create a timeless quality. Apparently, the ancient Greeks were just waiting for actors to discover Received Pronunciation.
However, there is one criticism that does deserve to be taken seriously: Emily Wilson’s. Especially because her 2017 translation of The Odyssey formed the basis of Nolan’s adaptation. She argues that the film simplifies Odysseus, stripping away much of the complexity of the character and leaving little to say about the major themes of Homer’s work.
From the perspective of someone who has spent years studying the text, it’s a difficult criticism to dismiss. However, there is also a difference between experiencing The Odyssey as a scholar and experiencing it as a general audience member. Wilson has pored over every word of the original, examining it through historical context and the work of other translators and academics. A filmgoer is approaching the story very differently. They are not necessarily looking for every character, or comparing every choice against centuries of interpretation; they are experiencing the story Nolan has chosen to tell.
Let’s be honest, most audience members won’t leave the cinema wondering where Queen Arete is or which elements of the poem have been omitted. As historian Tom Holland (not the actor who appears in this film) has pointed out, there is no historically accurate version of Odysseus to recreate. He is a mythical figure. An “impressionist” interpretation of ancient history is arguably more valuable than a painstaking attempt to recreate every historical detail, because such accuracy is impossible. So with that in mind, how is the film itself? As you can guess from my second paragraph, I loved it. It’s long, you can’t deny that, but every scene feels like it earns its place. There is so much mythology packed into this story that removing anything risks making the journey feel incomplete. Some stuff you’ll be familiar with (the Trojan horse, the sirens, Circe), some you won’t (I can’t say because I don’t know what you’re familiar with). The impressive thing isn’t that Nolan includes these famous moments; it’s the way he reinterprets them. The Trojan horse isn’t simply a giant wooden structure waiting to be wheeled into Troy. The song of the sirens is not a beautiful melody, but a haunting lament for everything you’ve left behind. Circe’s transformation of men into pigs is one of the most disturbing versions of that event you could hope for, helped enormously by another excellent performance from Samantha Morton. Surely an Academy Award for one of her performances is only a matter of time?
The cast is one of the film’s biggest strengths. There are no real weak links. Robert Pattinson gives a deliciously sleazy performance that will make your skin crawl, somehow making every appearance both entertaining and deeply uncomfortable. Matt Damon is perfectly cast, and not just because this is another film where he spends the story desperately trying to get home. Somehow, that has become his very specific niche. As said earlier, Samantha Morton is excellent as Circe, bringing a genuinely unsettling quality to a character who could easily have become just another stop on Odysseus’ journey. The only criticism you can really make of Tom Holland is that his babyface means he doesn’t quite look like a 30-year-old, but that is hardly a fault with his performance.
Visually, this might be Nolan at his most impressive. Polyphemus the cyclops looks genuinely monstrous; the way he kills Odysseus’ soldiers brings to mind Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, not simply because of the violence, but because of the sense of something ancient and unstoppable consuming something helpless. The Laestrygonians are similarly nightmarish, not only because of their size, but because of the way they manipulate the landscape itself to trap and kill their victims.
This makes it the perfect opportunity to talk about one of Nolan’s greatest strengths: his understanding of scale. A low angle alone does not make something feel enormous; the audience needs something familiar beside it for comparison. This is partly why I think Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did not work as well as it could have. The monsters were huge, but the films rarely gave us a true sense of that size. Nolan understands that difference. Here, everything that is supposed to feel massive actually does, from the mythological creatures to the buildings, landscapes, and entire worlds they inhabit.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Odyssey is not what Nolan builds, but what he allows us to see. The film takes us across coastlines, mountains and islands that feel almost untouched by time, and Nolan is confident enough to simply let them exist. The scenery becomes almost another character, shaping the journey as much as the people within it. Each location represents another stage of Odysseus’ journey, not just geographically but emotionally, giving the entire film a sense of scale and reality that artificial environments often struggle to replicate.
These are not historical places recreated for the camera. They are places that existed before the film and will continue to exist afterwards. Every mountain, coastline and cave has texture and history, making the journey feel less like a series of movie sets and more like an actual voyage across an ancient world.
For all Nolan’s strengths, emotion remains his greatest weakness. There is emotion here, but it comes mainly from the performances rather than the writing. The actors create feelings that the script itself rarely manages to reach. There are moments that should be devastating, but they are presented with such clinical precision that you end up more impressed than affected by what you are seeing. You understand what the characters are feeling, but you remain outside the experience rather than being pulled into it. There is an emotional distance between the audience and both the characters and the story.
The closest the film gets is near the end, when the fall of Troy is presented not as the glorious conclusion of an epic, but as what it actually was: the destruction of a city and a war crime. Even then, however, it does not have quite the impact it should. It is brutal, but in a film where soldiers are killed by living trees, transformed into pigs, or have their heads bitten off by monsters, the human horrors of war somehow feel strangely tame in comparison. You cannot present something as the tragedy that reshaped a civilisation if the audience does not feel its weight more than the fantastical violence surrounding it.
I meant what I said at the beginning: I don’t need to see another Nolan film. Not because I have lost interest, but because I genuinely cannot see how he could top this. The Odyssey feels like the culmination of everything he has spent his career working towards. Every other film now feels like a filmmaker refining the tools he would eventually need for this. Every obsession, every stylistic quirk, and every technical innovation finds the perfect material to justify itself.
I cannot imagine another Nolan film topping this because I cannot imagine another story that suits him quite this perfectly. But I hope I’m wrong. Because if Nolan somehow manages to surpass this, then we will have another one of my favourite films to add to the list.
Batman v Superman are siting him as the best thing about it; but as my co-producer said, this is recasting, so we have to recast. So I choose the grizzled British badass himself Clive Owen because… well look at him. Those eyes. That chin! He’s shown he has the charm and wit to play a convincingly smarmy Bruce Wayne in films like Closer, and the action experience and intensity to be a terrifying Batman. Again another older pick, so realistically there would be a restriction to how long he could play the part, but who cares!
of 2011’s Hal Jordan Green Lantern film, I think a change of pace with the hero is needed. Now Michael B. Jordan maybe a bit young to play the part, but he’s a fast rising star who’s already proven himself to have the chops to carry a film and do action well, so a younger take on the character could easily work, and add some needed levity to the DCCU. Honestly Jordan would make the perfect Cyborg too, having already voiced the character in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, but we didn’t include him on this list because well, who thinks of Cyborg when you think of the Justice League!
Ryan Gosling
nd an oddly chilled out Josh Brolin who adds the much needed levity between all the torture and mutilation. Directed with a Finchian level of detail and pristine, it follows by the books SWAT officer Emily Blunt as she is submerged into the murky work of the War on Drugs, and is tasked along with the mysterious Benicio del Toro to bring down the head of the Mexican Cartel. Sticking well clear of action tropes this isn’t a glorious, FUCK-Yah-‘Merica tale of beating the bad guy, this is a twisted, gritty, and dark morality tale that tells us that rarely the right thing to do, is the best thing to do.
I know this is basically a comedy, but it is also an intense Sci-fi thriller and if I didn’t put it here this section would be pretty spare. Ridley Scott’s best film in years (though I think I’m the only guy with a soft spot for The Counsellor), is a beautifully shot adventure following a marooned astronaut on Mars and his optimistic fight for survival. Now I don’t think there’s much more I can say about this, its just a damn good film, Matt Damon reminds us why he’s a superstar, and “Science the shit out of this” is destined to become an obnoxious over used phrase. But what allot of people I think fail to mention, is just how damn fun the Earth team is. Yeah the focus is on Damon, but 
Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and their team on Earth are just as engaging to watch as they have to ‘Science the shit out of it’ there end, to work out how to get to Damon before he dies. If you haven’t caught it already, it’s more than worth the two hour plus run time.
year. Essentially a spy flick parody with a real plot and its gun barrel firmly planted in its cheek; it’s bloody, stylish, and with a perfect twee British sense of humour. It’s like if the Pythons directed a James Bond flick, but not without some studio supervision. Taron Egerton proves himself a bankable action lead and rising star in Hollywood, and I can’t wait to see where he goes next; while Colin Firth does a clean 180 and flawlessly reinvents himself as a very convincing action star without losing an of his preppy Britishness we’ve come to love and treasure. The bad rep this seems to be getting from some critics should be completely ignored as high-brow snobbery and the last thing I’ll say is go in expecting something silly but amazing, and be ready for some ultra-violence
Who knew the best super-hero film of 2015 would be Ant-Man. Plagued with production issues for years, worst of all being the walk out of geek god Edgar Wright from directing, but despite all that Ant-Man STILL came out kicking. Helped by a great cast led by an always loveable Paul Rudd and an enjoyably cranky Michael Douglas, Ant-Man found its strength by keeping the comedy present throughout, in character scenes, exposition scenes, and action scenes, it always stays funny. Which makes it’s few moments of seriousness hit that much harder, him shrinking to the quantum realm was truly amazing, and gave the film the weight it needed. Is it perfect? Far from it; but it was a fun ride, with good action, and a much needed breath of fresh air for the quickly staling Marvel verse.
It Follows
Does this have problems? Yes. Are all of them made up for by pure retro-charm and heart? YES. I don’t know what people went in expecting with this film; some epic Sci-Fi drama that would change the world itself? Who knows? But if you went in just looking for entertainment, you got it in space-spades. A glories throwback to science fiction films of the 1940-50’s when the future was still fun, Tomorrowland may be slow to launch, but when it does it rockets through so many awesome set pieces, ideas, and so much enjoyable pseudoscience and alternate history bollocks , you can’t help but be charmed. Britt Robertson proves herself to be more than Jennifer Lawrence light, George Clooney shows he can wear the old curmudgeon
hat with panache, and Raffey Cassidy is becoming one of the most unique child stars acting today. Is it a perfect film, no, but not everything has to be! We seem to be living in a world where if something isn’t ‘#tHeBeSTThInG_EVEEER’ then it’s terrible…No. Not everything has to be perfect in every aspect if it wasn’t trying to be. This film wanted to be nothing more than a fun family adventure with a good message, and it was hung because that’s all it was.
Troubled Productions 