Is “The Odyssey” Really 2026’s Best Film So Far? Not Quite

The Odyssey has all the scale and polish of an event film, but it doesn’t feel like one of Nolan’s best. It’s a big production that keeps insisting on its importance, yet the result feels cold, heavy-handed, and overworked. For all its visual ambition and prestige casting, the movie plays less like a sweeping take on Homer and more like Nolan at his most self-serious. The biggest issue is how often the film shrinks its own scale. Some shots look striking on their own, but the overall image is dark, flat, and muddy. The IMAX framing often feels tight instead of expansive. Instead of making ancient Greece feel vast and mythic, the film leans on close-ups, shallow focus, and dim lighting that flatten everything. Ithaca, in particular, lacks warmth or texture. It feels more like a cave than a kingdom, which undercuts a story about home and return. The structure doesn’t help. The opening stretch drags, and the nonlinear storytelling feels more like a trick than a real need. Editing is choppy, with scenes starting and stopping before they find any rhythm. The film also keeps delaying the material people came to see. By the time the adventure finally opens up, it’s already spent too long ...