‘The Odyssey’ review: Christopher Nolan’s magical epic is mammoth and fantastic

It’s hard to fathom going bigger than Batman and the father of the atomic bomb. But we are mere mortals and not that Zeus of directors_, Christopher Nolan, the man whose ambitions grow more gargantuan with every movie.

His latest Olympus to scale is “The Odyssey,” Homer’s Greek epic poem that has been adapted for the screen surprisingly few times considering it’s about 2,800 years old. 

Or, maybe that’s not so surprising.  

Even the most gifted filmmakers would shudder at the old tale’s complicated web of characters, myriad magical creatures, brutal battles, watery locales and a dense mythology of gods and goddesses that many hazily recall from high school.

Not Nolan.

He took up Odysseus’ weighty bow, shot an arrow and scored another hit.

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” with a transportive, sprawling and emotional adventure with visuals that will reduce even the most jaded movie buff into a giddy child.

Nolan just having some dudes on horseback gallop across an ivory beach is a more awe-inspiring image than pretty much anything else you’ll see all year.

Where “The Odyssey” falls into line with the “Interstellar” director’s popular oeuvre is its characteristic darkness. Just because it’s set in and around the Ionian Sea doesn’t mean it’s jubilantly colorful like “Jason and the Argonauts.”

After all, this is a deadly journey the hero would rather not be on.      

And the 10-year absence of the missing King Odysseus, played by a bearded Matt Damon with the most gravitas he’s ever wielded, here seems as much to do with PTSD from the horrors of the Trojan War as being held captive by the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron). He’s a man reckoning with the horrors of his past while fighting for his future.

Back home in Ithaca is his stoic wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who awaits her hubby as she fends off a pack of brutish suitors who want to replace Odysseus on the throne. While she puts off making her choice, the jerks have turned his house into a gluttonous party palace.     

His young son Telemachus (Tom Holland, ably escaping Marvel’s web) resents them and desperately wants to find out what happened to his long-lost dad. Is he alive? Can he become king? 

Nolan, by the way, has the heir say “dad” — not father. And the writer throws in a couple F-bombs for flavor. The script isn’t so modern that it’s “The Fate of the Furious,” but the freshening up kills any stiffness or pageantry this movie could easily fall into like the Charybdis monster’s whirlpool mouth.

The Ithaca scenes are political, tense and a little sexy — lit by fire. Hathaway makes a strong-willed and feisty queen who won’t bend for anybody, even her kid. She’s nice one second, and knifes you the next. And Robert Pattinson, as the nastiest suitor, is a ratty and petulant Tybalt type. John Leguizamo, full of pathos, surprised me as Odysseus’ wise and kind pal Eumaeus.

But fans aren’t paying IMAX prices to watch Hathaway weave a shroud. 

It’s Odysseus and his soldiers’ perilous voyage home from Troy that they’ve come for, and it’s awash in majestic moments that boggle the mind. 

Before that pivotal fight, the Trojan Horse stands ominously in the sand like the Statue of Liberty in “The Planet of the Apes,” with Ithacans claustrophobically crammed inside. Some have died in the shell.

Later, the scuffle with the cyclops in his cave could have been cheesy — one-eyed giants tend to be — yet the encounter is made unnerving and pale as if drained of blood. Like everything in “The Odyssey,” the beast with an appetite for human heads looks eerily real.

And of course there’s the tentacled Scylla — another maneater.

One of Odysseus’ best scenes, though, isn’t massive at all. It’s in the hillside cottage of the witch Circe, whose favorite pastime is turning warriors into pigs. The superb Samantha Morton gives a barnburner speech about why her victims deserve to be swine.

There is an absurd number of notable actors in this nearly-three-hour movie. Some major stars have barely a few minutes of screentime, like Lupita Nyong’o as sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra and Zendaya as the goddess Athena, who guides Odysseus. 

No matter how small, everybody makes an impact, though, while humbly fitting into an ensemble bigger than any Trojan Horse could carry.

Who better to adapt an epic poem than Nolan, a man who unearths poetry in all of his epics? Here, he did not set out to use Greek myths as the foundation for a basic action movie, as so many do. Instead he dives into the psychology and moral thorniness of Odysseus’ plight. 

And Damon is the perfect uneasy head to wear that burdensome crown. Although we don’t learn the extent of Odysseus’ torment till the end, Damon throughout makes a layered and conflicted leader, whose loyalty to his men and to his family often butt heads. 

The actor had to drop down to a lean 167 pounds for this part, which has a cool effect. For one, Odysseus has to command respect by force of personality rather than being the biggest guy in the room. He’s scrappy and smart.  And in the fantastic final fight, set to composer Ludwig Göransson’s ferocious ritual drums, Odysseus starts out as the underdog and soon has everybody crying like scared puppies.

It’s a remarkably satisfying finish. And a revelation everybody knows is coming from the start brings full-body chills because of the defy way this director stages it. Hint: Look out for the arrow.

Once again, it’s so easy to be seduced by Christopher Nolan’s siren song.