Odyssey: When Nolan’s ancient Greece gets the IMAX Treatment (trailer).
There are remakes, there are reboots, and then there’s Christopher Nolan deciding to have a go at The Odyssey, which is rather like someone casually announcing they’re popping out to repaint the Sistine Chapel. In IMAX. With a slightly moodier colour palette.
Yes, The Odyssey is back, and this time it’s hauling a $250 million war chest, a cast list that looks like the guest seating plan at Olympus’ BAFTAs afterparty, and enough 70mm film to wrap around the Earth several times and still have some left over for a director’s cut.
Matt Damon takes on Odysseus, the original “just popping out for milk” husband who takes roughly ten years longer than expected. His Penelope is played by Anne Hathaway, who will presumably spend much of the film perfecting the ancient art of politely fending off unwanted suitors while maintaining regal composure and possibly Googling “divorce in Bronze Age Greece.”
Meanwhile, Tom Holland plays Telemachus, the son who has grown up hearing, “Your dad’s just delayed, honest,” for a full decade. Zendaya pops in as Athena, presumably offering cryptic advice in a tone suggesting she knows how this all ends but isn’t going to spoil it.
Then there’s Robert Pattinson as a particularly smug suitor, Lupita Nyong’o in a role we’re all pretending we fully understand from the trailer, and Charlize Theron as Calypso, who will almost certainly be the reason half the audience briefly questions whether Odysseus should maybe just stay put on that island.
The trailer itself is classic Nolan. By which I mean it tells you almost nothing, while making you feel like you’ve already seen something deeply important and slightly exhausting. There are waves crashing, men looking windswept and haunted, and a general sense that no one has had a decent night’s sleep since Troy fell.
What’s particularly intriguing is Nolan’s insistence on “realism,” which in this context means the gods might not so much appear as cause extremely inconvenient weather. Expect divine intervention to manifest as suspiciously well-timed storms, freakish tides, and the sort of natural disasters that scream, “Zeus is having a bit of a moment.”
This isn’t the first time cinema has taken a swing at Homer, of course. From Jason and the Argonauts to Troy, Hollywood has long enjoyed dressing up ancient Greeks in helmets that historians politely describe as “creative.” Nolan, in a move that has already caused mild academic twitching, appears to be continuing that fine tradition, albeit with significantly more expensive fabric and better lighting.
Still, there’s something deliciously fitting about Nolan tackling this story. His films have always been about time, obsession, and men making increasingly questionable decisions while insisting they are, in fact, very clever. Odysseus, frankly, is one of his people.
And if the early footage is anything to go by, this will be less “myth retold” and more “existential sea voyage with bonus cyclops.” Expect long silences, sudden bursts of chaos, and at least one scene where someone explains a plan that only makes sense if you’ve got a PhD in narrative geometry.
Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we have a soft spot for stories where the universe seems actively annoyed with the protagonist, and The Odyssey looks set to deliver that in spades. It’s the ultimate road trip movie, if your road is the Mediterranean, your sat nav is a moody goddess, and every service station is trying to kill you.
Will it be faithful? Probably not entirely. Will it be spectacular? Almost certainly. Will Odysseus finally get home without another detour involving monsters, enchantresses or existential dread? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
After all, this is Christopher Nolan. Even getting home is likely to involve a nonlinear timeline and at least one scene where time itself has a quiet lie down.
Pack snacks. It’s going to be a long journey.
