Reviews for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” have arrived and they appear to be essentially a career best for the filmmaker.
With 109 reviews counted, the film sits at a stunning 98% on Rotten Tomatoes with an even more impressive 8.8/10 average score – that’s above his last film “Oppenheimer” (93% & 8.6/10), though the average score is just below “The Dark Knight” (94% & 8.9/10).
The same is true over at Metacritic where it stands at an 88/100 – easily the best-reviewed wide-release film of the year so far and the third best for Nolan behind only “Dunkirk” (94) and “Oppenheimer” (90).
Here’s a sampling of reviews:
“The awesome power of “The Odyssey,” and the primary reason why Nolan’s ultra-grounded version of its story is as reinvigorating for Homer’s epic as Homer’s epic is for him, is rooted in a gambit worthy of the Trojan horse itself. A-” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire
“Nolan refuses to tremble before the canon. Grabbing mighty scissors, he cuts and rejiggers Homer and a bit of Virgil to transform the classical texts into his type of tale: one fixated on memory, self-identity, destructive genius and the slippage of time.” – Amy Nicholason, The LA Times
“Technically, as you’d expect from this director, the movie is mightily impressive, for its scale, the graceful way it moves from one time period to another, and for the tactility of its imagery.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
“It is an anomalous big-studio entertainment that Nolan has filled with stars and polished to a high gleam, turning a 3,000-year-old poem into a smart, thoughtful film with Old Hollywood allure.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“His stunning and captivating “Odyssey” is the director in his David Lean era, eschewing the cerebral topics that tickled him in “Tenet,” “Inception” and to an extent “Oppenheimer,” and building his own “Lawrence of Arabia”.” – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
“There’s so much to feel here at a sensory level that the film gets away with its slightly aloof, soul-skirting chill; we leave it feeling that we’ve been to hell and back, and exhilaratingly so.” – Guy Lodge, Variety
“This is a film with thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair. There are some broad-brush moments in the dialogue, yes, but even these are applied with a muscular flourish.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“We live in an age starved of awe. It leaves quite a gap in the market for Christopher Nolan — long held to be the last giant in movies and uniquely able to spark that missing wonder. Now he has made The Odyssey. Maybe it was fate.” – Danny Leigh, The Financial Times
“The Odyssey” opens in cinemas everywhere on Friday.
