The Odyssey Review: Adding New Depth to History’s Most Classical Story.

I have fond memories of studying Homer’s classics of The Iliad and The Odyssey in High School.
The two epic poems are perhaps the oldest surviving stories in human history but there have not been many big budget attempts to adapt them to the screen.
There was the Troy movie many years ago but that was more focused on being an action blockbuster than actually getting into the message of the story.
However, when I heard that Christopher Nolan would be adapting The Odyssey, I had no doubt that one of the greatest directors of our time would be up to the task.
The film follows the Greek Hero Odysseus, played wonderfully by Matt Damon, on his ten-year journey home following the Trojan War.

Odysseus’ quest to get home to his family is a timeless tale.

During his travels he must face monsters, potential mutiny from his men, and the wrath of the Gods themselves.
But even if the hero reaches his home of Ithaca, his trials will be far from over.
In Odysseus’ absence, suitors have taken over his home, planning to marry his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and usurp his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland).
These suitors are led by Antinous, who is portrayed through a delightfully scummy performance from Robert Pattinson.

Get ready to want to punch Pattinson in this movie. Although, that’s probably a bad idea since he is literally Batman.

Every actor in this movie, from those with large roles to minor, give it their all, which is quite funny given all of the casting “controversy.”
In the lead up to the film’s release, it was difficult to escape people complaining about Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as Achilles.
The latter complaint is especially egregious because, guess what?
Elliot Page does not play Achilles so all of that complaining was for nothing.

Elliot Page plays Sinon, a soldier from *The Aeneid* rather than *The Odyssey.*

Nyong’o and Page’s performances also only take up a few minutes of the film, at most, so it really goes to show just how disingenuous certain people were being.
Not to mention, the brief performances the actors gave were solid.
As I said, everyone in the cast does a great job, with my favorites being Matt Damon as Odysseus (of course), Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, and John Leguizamo as Eumaus in what might be the best performance of his career.

John Leguizamo is excellent as the faithful swineherd.

But enough about the performances, what about the rest of the film?
Well, the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema and soundtrack by Ludwig Göransson are expectedly also fantastic.
Nolan shot the movie entirely on IMAX 70 mm (the first feature film to do so), and filmed on location across the globe, resulting in jaw dropping visuals.
There was also plenty of camera trickery, which added to the otherworldly nature of The Odyssey’s mythical monsters.
This was most apparent with the Cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), with the way he was filmed reminding me a lot of the original King Kong (1933).
Speaking of the Cyclops, his scene is nothing short of absolutely horrifying.
The same goes for Circe (Samantha Morton), where Nolan tries his hand at body horror, which resulted in me wincing into the back of my seat.
There’s the Laestrygonians, the trip to the Underworld, and many more unsettling moments.
Honestly, I would be very excited to hear it if Christopher Nolan’s next movie was a horror film.
I cannot imagine how scary such a movie would be.

The Cyclops and Circe scenes are probably going to haunt my nightmares for a while.

Nolan wrote the script for The Odyssey, adding new twists to the age-old tale.
I particularly liked how the events of the Trojan War drove Odysseus’ actions in this movie, along with how it led to his interactions with Athena (Zendaya).
There is also one particular scene with Odysseus’ dog and, as someone who lost their own dog last year, this moment made me tear up.

Although, the writing is not completely perfect because, as you may have noticed from the trailer, all of the characters speak in a modern dialect.
This does create a few moments where I was brought out of the film because of how modern everything sounded.
Also some of the creatures Odysseus faces go by pretty quickly, which makes sense given how packed the film is, but it felt like they should have either been given more room to breath or cut entirely.

Granted, this movie is already so long that extending it might have been a little much.

Otherwise, Christopher Nolan definitely lived up to expectations in adapting The Odyssey.
The performances are excellent, as are the techniques used to craft the film, and Nolan’s writing adds plenty of thematic weight to an already rich tale.
I expect The Odyssey to be nominated for a lot of awards by the year’s end and, should it win these, it will be very well deserved.
Do not listen to the biased detractors and go see this movie.
Just make sure not to drink too much water beforehand, otherwise you may be in need of a toilet break halfway through, because this a long one.

Oppenheimer Review: One of Christopher Nolan’s Best.

Christopher Nolan is one of my and many other’s favourite directors working today.
His name attached to a project alone is enough to get my butt in a set.
I have even liked some of his films which have received criticism, like most recently Tenet.
Nolan’s Oppenheimer, however, has been getting mostly non-stop praise and, after seeing the film in Xtremescreen, I can say that this praise is entirely deserved.
Oppenheimer is a biographical film following the life of the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer, called the father of the atomic bomb.
Cillian Murphy plays Oppenheimer in his first leading role in a Christopher Nolan movie, and he does so flawlessly, conveying so much emotion with just his eyes.

This is Murphy’s best performance to date.

His performance is masterful, as we watch Oppenheimer go from studying abroad, to eventually leading the Manhattan Project, to his downfall during the shameful years of the McCarthy Era.
I would not be surprised if we saw Murphy get at least an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
He should not be alone in getting a nomination, however, for there are other actors whose roles in Oppenheimer make them deserving as well.
There is Emily Blunt as Kitty Openheimer, who steals the scene in an interrogation with Jason Clarke’s Roger Robb, which makes her deserving of a Best Supporting Actress nod.
As for Best Supporting Actor, the nomination without a doubt has to go to Robert Downey Jr, who delivers what is one of the best performances of his career as Lewis Strauss.

I will be upset if Robert Downey Jr. does not at least get nominated for his role in *Oppenheimer.*

Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Gary Oldman, and Casey Affleck are some of the many, many big name actors who makes appearances in this film and they all do excellent.
But what is good performances without good direction, and Christopher Nolan delivers that in spades with a stunning look into Oppenheimer’s mind in all of its beauty and terror.
This terror especially comes into play with the Trinity Test, the first test of a nuclear bomb, which is the most intense moment I have seen on screen all year.

The build up to the blast had my heart pounding.

The way the cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), the editing (Jennifer Lame) and score (Ludwig Göransson) all combine during the Trinity Test creates such a beautifully haunting moment.
This moment is maybe even matched by Oppenehimer’s reaction to the aftermath of the successful bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed hundreds of thousands.
Nolan and Murphy portray the effect these horrible events had on Oppenheimer perfectly, leading an ending scene which gave me goosebumps.
I think the last time a movie’s ending left me feeling so haunted was when I saw the ending to Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder.

The ending of *Oppenheimer* will stick with me for a while.

After seeing Oppenheimer I would go as far to say that it is not just an excellent film but one of Christopher Nolan’s best, right up there with the likes of Inception and The Dark Knight.
The film is three hours long and when it was over it felt like barely any time had passed and that may be the highest praise I can give it.
I cannot recommend Oppenheimer enough.
It not only provides a haunting look at the creation of nuclear weapons but a look at the flawed yet sympathetic man who fathered them.

Tenet Review: Inverting Confusion.

It’s quite rare nowadays to see a blockbuster film that is not a sequel, prequel, reboot, remake or some other continuation of a franchise.
However, when we do get one, chances are that it comes from the creative Christopher Nolan, who just loves to deliver films with mind bending concepts to get us thinking.
Tenet is his latest films and by far his most polarizing.
I have seen multiple different reactions, from people loving the film for its creativity, to people hating it for being overly confusing, both of which are valid standpoints.
It is very easy to get confused in Tenet and this happened to me multiple times, until the film itself inverted and everything fell into place.

The final act of *Tenet* made the first half so much better because it cleared up a lot of my confusion.

The film follows John David Washington’s character, simply known as the Protagonist, who is recruited into a secret organization that wages espionage using a time distortion technique known as inversion.
To say anything else would be spoiling too much because, right from the opening, every single bit of detail we get is important to the story.
And be sure to pay attention because if you lose one piece of information then you may become lost entirely.
I know I was lost on what happened in a couple of scenes, until I looked up their meaning after seeing the film.
While this confusing use of exposition may be polarizing to some audiences, I think it really pays off in the end because of the last 45 minutes.
Even though I did enjoy the film up until that point, I was mostly just along for the ride and not understanding what was happening.
Those final 45 minutes recontextualized the whole film and made the confusing experience I had before this point worth it.
What helped me stay engaged in the film, despite being almost totally lost as to what was happening for most of it, is the fantastic action, pure spectacle, great performances and stellar score.
Tenet has some of the best action scenes of the year, helped by the meaning added to them in the third act, and the spectacle of plenty of the shots is jaw dropping.
As for the performances, everyone does a great job.
Washington is compelling as The Protagonist, even though you don’t know much about him for most of the film, Elizabeth Debicki is entirely relatable as Kat, and Robert Pattison gave probably my favourite performance in the entire film as Neil.

Pattinson does an incredible job as Neil, making me even more excited for when he plays Batman.

As for the villain of the film, Kenneth Branagh plays Andrei Sator in a great performance but for an antagonist that is solely serviceable.
Now, though, we have to get into the issues of Tenet, which do hold it back.
Definitely the biggest of these issues is the sound mixing.
The music and sound effects are blasting so loud at times that it is almost impossible to hear what the characters are saying and, when you need to hear practically every line of dialogue to understand what is happening, this is not a good thing.
The sound mixing is particularly bad during a sailing scene, and one pivotal scene where the music is booming and some characters are even speaking backwards while other characters are speaking normally.
It was very disorienting and really took me out of the film.

I clearly remember thinking, *Turn the dialogue up! I’m trying to understand this scene!* At one point.

At least Ludwig Göransson’s score is amazing to listen to.
Also, despite the film being saved by its third act recontextualizing everything, I still cannot deny that a lot of people are going to be put off by the confusing first two acts.
Still, despite its flaws, Tenet is a great film that is worth seeing for the pure spectacle of inversion alone.
It is one of Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious films but also sure to be one of his most divisive.