Christopher Nolan\u2019s $250m Imax blockbuster version of Homer\u2019s epic poem the Odyssey looks set to be among the director\u2019s best-received of his career, and could be a frontrunner for next year\u2019s best picture Oscar.<\/p>\n
The Guardian\u2019s Peter Bradshaw<\/a> was among the vast majority of critics who awarded it five stars, calling it a film \u201cwith 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.\u201d<\/p>\n In the Independent, Clarisse Loughrey<\/a> said the film was \u201cNolan\u2019s best work to date\u201d and \u201cdeserves to be the film that defines him\u201d, while the Telegraph\u2019s Robbie Collin<\/a> called it \u201ca strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie \u2013 by some distance, the best of the year so far\u201d.<\/p>\n The Times\u2019s Kevin Maher<\/a> called the film \u201ca masterpiece in every way\u201d. He added: \u201cThere is a palpable yearning for primal storytelling and a need for art that can inform and instruct as well as entertain. Nolan has done it. This is the artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis<\/a> said she could discern Nolan\u2019s passion for cinema \u201cin every frame of his monumental adaptation\u201d, calling it \u201cone of the most Nolan of Nolan spectacles in its thematic concerns, formal playfulness, kinetic thrills and unabashed showmanship\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2018One of the most Nolan of Nolan spectacles\u2019 \u2026 The Odyssey. Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon\/Universal Pictures<\/p>\n \u201cNolan asks us to dream bigger,\u201d she added. \u201cHis Odyssey is a classic in every sense, a transporting affirmation of the art and a work of pure cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n Guy Lodge<\/a>, chief critic of US industry magazine Variety was almost entirely enthusiastic, writing that, as \u201ca genuinely grand, gutsy vision, The Odyssey thrills generously for the bulk of its near three-hour running time: every few minutes, it seems, it throws at its audience another mighty set piece that, in almost any other summer studio spectacle, would be a climactic standout.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Odyssey is a veritable banquet, then, of such loud, grandiose, movie-movie pleasures, so brashly, confidently lavish that it can afford to throw away a significant portion of its all-star cast on lily-gilding cameos.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cThere\u2019s 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\u2019ve been to hell and back, and exhilaratingly so.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markNolan asks us to dream bigger … his Odyssey is a classic in every senseManohla Dargis, New York Times<\/p>\n Lodge\u2019s faint note of criticism was echoed by his opposite number at the Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney<\/a>, who suggested the scenes involving Matt Damon\u2019s Odysseus and Charlize Theron\u2019s Calypso conversing on a beach were \u201cdull interludes\u201d that \u201cstop the narrative dead in its tracks, recalling Sean Penn\u2019s purgatorial wanderings in Malick\u2019s The Tree of Life\u201d.<\/p>\n Rooney also called the film \u201cstructurally clumsy\u201d, questioned the casting of Tom Holland as Damon\u2019s son, and said he \u201cwinced at anachronistic language like Penelope telling her rowdy suitors, \u2018I\u2019ve listened to you party\u2019, or Telemachus referring to his father as \u2018dad\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n Such anachronistic language did not trouble classicist Mary Beard, however, who called it a \u201cbrisk, pacy and contemporary film, with no dreadful cod-epic language\u201d and praised Nolan for providing what she felt would be for many people \u201ca great introduction to Homer\u201d.<\/p>\n Anachronistic? \u2026 Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus in The Odyssey. Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon\/Universal Pictures<\/p>\n