Nolan's 'The Odyssey' Gets Mostly Rave First Reactions
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- Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' drew early reactions Monday that were overwhelmingly positive, with LA Times film editor Joshua Rothkopf calling the film 'staggering' — 'earthy, ghostly, weighty, touched by humor and grandeur' — and a 'return home to the robustly entertaining action movies that cinema was invented to tell.'
- Time Out's Phil de Semlyen urged audiences to 'believe the hype(rbole),' calling the film 'dense but accessible,' while Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw framed it as 'a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion and a loss of innocence.'
- Indiewire's Anne Thompson assessed awards prospects, predicting Matt Damon could win Best Actor and labeling the film 'the BP [Best Picture] to beat.'
- Indiewire's David Erlich broke from the chorus, calling the film 'less despairing' than Oppenheimer but 'too clunky to be S-tier Nolan,' though conceding 'the last act rewards the journey.'
- The Odyssey opens July 17, with initial domestic debut projections of $80M–$100M that could shift on early word-of-mouth — a year after 70mm IMAX tickets began selling out.
- Deadline commenters pushed back on the rave consensus, with one declaring it an 'epic disaster' and another writing that 'these reactions require the entire salt shaker.'
Why it matters: With 'The Odyssey' opening July 17 on $80M–$100M domestic projections, the overwhelmingly positive early critical reception positions the film as a major awards-season and box-office contender, though one prominent Indiewire critic's 'too clunky to be S-tier Nolan' dissent offers a hedge against the hype.
