Epic and unexciting

It’s hard to reconcile how both of these things can be true: We’ll never see a better version of The Odyssey, and also for a thing with so much “excitement,” it was pretty boring and I was pumped to go home and watch something else afterward. Our theater was relatively full, but there was nothing even in the ballpark of a cheer or even excited chatter at the end of the three hours. I think people felt like they had just been released from captivity inside the walls of Troy and they went home as quickly as possible.

Nolan-heads and film bros are talking about this as the “movie of the year” and a landmark monocultural moment. I think it’s neither. I think it was really impressive and I didn’t give a rip about any of the characters, which is kind of my Nolan experience in a nutshell. I was most heavily invested in the John Leguizamo character’s dog, who really was a good boy.

Relatively speaking, for a non-Marvel-head, this has been a Big Movie summer, what with a new Spielberg offering, and now a Nolan adaptation of one of the oldest stories of all time. The Odyssey is about a dangerous voyage through a world filled with mythical creatures and challenges, all of which must be defeated or avoided.

In a summer that has included a stifling heat wave, a diarrheic lettuce parasite, and Canada’s annual inability to control its wildfire situation, modern American life feels a little more like The Odyssey than I’m comfortable with.

A few qualifying statements:

1. I tend to have trouble caring about “sword and sandal” as a time period. Moreso if there are fantastical creatures in the offing. My usual rule of thumb is, “If there is a dragon involved, I’m out.”
2. My interest in Greek epic poetry is, admittedly, nonexistent. I probably had to read it in college and gave it, at best, a light skim. I’m saying this about myself as a “glitch” and not a “feature.” I wish I was the kind of guy who liked epic poetry, but then I would probably have a ponytail and vote very differently.
3. Nolan turned “non-linear” and “disconnected” into aesthetics, as any early-2000s wannabe film bro (I was this) would have told you after viewing Memento. In the Pantheon of Nolan, this one was actually pretty straightforward, as most of the story is shown in flashbacks while Damon tells his story to Charlize Theron while marooned on an island with her for seven years.
4. I’ve seen about half of Nolan’s filmography, but more heavily weighted to the early stuff.
5. This was maybe the most diverse cast ever assembled in a movie, if you care about that sort of thing, in that there were old actors, Gen-Xers, men, women, and Ellen/Elliot Page. It had John Bernthal (I’m a season ticket holder) basically playing his Mikey character from The Bear, the rapper Travis Scott (I love “Sicko Mode”), and Tom Holland playing a Millennial as he does in every movie while also playing Odysseus’s son. My feeling about Tom Holland is that in pretty much every movie he’s in you could replace him with almost anyone and not lose anything.
6. Robert Pattinson, of Twilight fame, has gotten more interesting as he’s gotten older and may be moving himself into the Alan-Rickman-creepy-white-bad-guy roster spot. I don’t hate this.
7. The hipster/Substack take is that O Brother, Where Art Thou is the only Odyssey adaptation they’ll ever need. I hate O Brother, Where Art Thou.

I didn’t hate this, but I didn’t like it either. And I don’t hate that Nolan has the “Biggest Director of the 21st Century” title belt. He’s earned it. But I’m starting to think that caring about movies and arguing about movies might be dumb.

Because here’s what’s going to happen: There will be a certain percentage of critics arguing that this story is “about” Nolan himself (come on), and another percentage arguing that the last speech of the movie is some kind of statement about American life in the here and now. Because I’m not Nolan, I can’t say definitively. But I don’t think it’s either. I think he had a chance to make a really expensive impossible-to-make movie and he pulled it off. Which is impressive.

I think if you have a special place in your heart for Greek epic poetry, you’ll probably really enjoy this in much the same way that I’ll watch and enjoy Any Given Sunday even though it’s a very mediocre three-hour movie about football. I just love football. Similarly, if you love “wow that looked amazing, how did they do that?”-type visuals, you’ll probably enjoy this. I think if you’re the kind of person who enjoys smugly reminding people that you’ve read The Odyssey, this movie will provide a good month full of opportunities to do this.

A quote in the third act summed it up for me: “Give up the fight, give up control, and live.” If you’re in the business of reading Christian themes into secular movies, this is probably about as close as you’ll get with The Odyssey.

This was an impressive movie, but it’s not worth a fight.