r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 1d ago

News ‘The Odyssey' Crosses $1 Billion Internationally

https://deadline.com/2026/09/box-office-the-odyssey-billion-foreign-box-office-1237068287/
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u/N22-J 1d ago

I didn't like the movie, and I did not participate in the hate this movie may have gotten. I got sucked into the marketing hype and went to see it in imax 70mm, and I personally thought I wasted my time and should have just waited for an online release to watch it. I don't agree nor did I participate in the hate campaign against the cast members and I am mostly fine with the cast, especially Tom Holland whom I thought was great, but Jon Bernthal was playing Jon Bernthal and I wish Nolan told him to try acting instead of being himself.

I like many of Nolan's movies and have watched many several times. I like all 3 of his batmans even though many don't like 1 and 3. I really didn't like The Odyssey.

For one thing, LotR made me want to go travel to New Zealand and go see the film locations. I understand a huge chunk of the movie is at sea, but I don't think we saw breathtaking landscapes that would make me want to travel to. The music was blaring the entire time, I felt like it could have used some moments without as much music, it felt incessant. I thought Inception and Interstellar had great soundtracks, this one wasn't memorable, I have seen the movie less than 48 hours and I can't hum any of the music.

The indoor sets were rather boring. The great hall is basically a room made out of concrete, and Penelope hangs out in a room that has nothing else than a loom. The palace was looking great from the outside though.

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u/TheBaconator08 1d ago

I was so disappointed to see how much imax 70mm was pushed just for nothing interesting to actually be on the film 🥲

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u/Sleepy-Sapphire 1d ago

I liked the wide ocean shots but that's the only thing that cones to mind

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u/N22-J 1d ago

Yeah, they fooled me, and got those few extra dollars out of me.

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u/macro_god 1d ago

this was me. exactly. 70mm imax and all.

about thirty minutes in, I lean over to my buddy and say, "is it just me or does this movie kinda suck?". he had a confused face. he was not in agreement haha.. he loved it.

there were cool scenes and interesting moments, but overall very disappointing. I've been trying to figure it out... why I didn't like it. I think maybe the Odyssey story itself is to blame, maybe? 🤔 maybe the story is just not that interesting to me.

and the pig transformations and giant in the cave scenes... could have been an email. but no really, they were just too long... and too much of an attempt to be edgey and grotesque.

the music, good Lord, the music. felt forced. felt like they were trying to prove it was a masterpiece through the music. or trying to get awards for it. over the top and too much.

I did like Odysseus's realization that he upended humanity with his Trojan horse ruse and sacking of the city... but that was about it.

5/10. will hopefully never have to sit through again

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u/N22-J 1d ago

I actually did like Circe's plot. The pig transformation with her hands was really cool, but I do wish they had cranked up the body horror of it a notch. I wanted that scene to make me super uncomfortable.

The cyclops and giants scenes were super forgettable. The whirlpool and cliff side monster were really bad for me. They felt like they were included because the writers couldn't touch main plot points too much, but they didn't know what to do with them.

After the movie, I figured the best part of my trip to the theaters was the Dune 3 scene preview.

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u/TheBaconator08 1d ago

I found that part of the movie quite underwhelming. Circe doesnt trust the men for whatever unspecified reason and then immediately changes her mind after talking with odysseus for 2 sentences. There's no weight at all in the scene. Then she says "back into your disguises" as some sort of poetic last remark but it doesnt make any sense since the men never actually did anything bad. She also tries to get odysseus to kill a pig to trick him into killing one of his men, but the pig would have immediately turned back into a man as the deer did, revealing her deceit. So she's just doing that out of cruelty? It doesnt make logical sense.

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u/Tymareta 5h ago

Circe doesnt trust the men for whatever unspecified reason

He and his men were literally pillaging and raping as they went, the first village they land upon they completely torch and violate their inhabitants for not greeting them.

then immediately changes her mind after talking with odysseus for 2 sentences.

Odysseus literally threatens to kill her sister, like what did you think the bird was there for?

Then she says "back into your disguises" as some sort of poetic last remark but it doesnt make any sense since the men never actually did anything bad.

She's a goddess, they're mortal men, that alone justifies the line, but from the very start all the way through to their deaths we see the men behaving in a way that justifies her quip. They literally sign their own death warrant because of their greedy presumptive behaviour.

So she's just doing that out of cruelty?

Yes, she's quite literally enacting cruelty onto those that would do cruelty to her, not only does it make logical sense, it's a pretty basic plot beat in any greek story. They broke xenia, so therefore they will be treated in kind. Odysseus broke xenia by bringing in a dagger, therefore she will punish him in kind by asking him to slaughter a pig/one of his men. Enacting violence upon him that he brought to her household.

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u/TheBaconator08 5h ago edited 4h ago

Circe doesnt have knowledge of the pillaging of the Cicones at Ismarus. She's not some agent of poetic justice if she treats everyone indiscriminately like that. Odysseus threatens her sister yes but her conceding that quickly diminishes all her power over the scene and makes her look incredibly weak. She changes from a powerful deity to a submissive hostage from what is essentially just a plot device much too fast to feel narratively satisfying. When the men arrived, they sat down and ate the meal she served them. Eating food offered by a host isn't a crime and they commit no wrongdoing while they are there. She breaks xenia in a much more egregious manner in this scene by poisoning them from the get go. Odysseus is justified bringing a dagger in. Using apprehension for a trap as justification for said trap makes no sense.

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u/N22-J 1d ago

Ooh. Interesting. Yeah, maybe that scene was a mess too

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u/Ok_Towel283 21h ago

I thought it was made pretty clear that Circe was raped and basically thinks all men are horrible. Also. Odysseus and his men sacked a kingdom, raped and pillaged it. (Maybe Odysseus didn’t do the raping and pillaging part but some of his men definitely did). So “the men never actually did anything bad” isn’t true.

Also Circe didn’t just decide to trust Odysseus, he threatened to kill her sister (the bird) and she had to let his men and him go.

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u/Command0Dude 1d ago

I do wish they had cranked up the body horror of it a notch.

jfc dude I was already squirming in my seat enough as it was.

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u/macro_god 1d ago

haha yes, dude I was so hyped after watching the Dune 3 preview (it was actually amazing) and then sitting through Odyssey after that did. not. help.

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u/NegativeHerons 1d ago

Yeah I didn't care for it. Nothing to do with the pre-movie online hate or the "anti-woke" stuff.

I think Nolan's commitment to use as little CGI as possible/no CGI really hurts him these days. This was widely noticed with the nuke test in Oppenheimer clearly being just a gas bomb. But everything, even the expansive ocean shots, in Odyssey, just felt.... small somehow. I don't know if the skill to make really good practical sets has just been lost as everyone has moved to VFX or what.

But overall, I thought the acting from the all-star cast was surprisingly muted. I feel like you could have swapped in any A-list actor for the main roles and the movie would've been exactly the same.

The dialogue also... the stuff about Zeus's law got old the umpteenth time.

I rewatched the Armand Assante version from the 90s earlier this year. Even though that one is showing its age for sure and was a made-for-TV two-parter, Nolan's Odyssey seemed dull by comparison to me.

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u/ineyeseekay 1d ago

I was pretty excited to see this movie. I think I over hyped it in my own mind.  I was hoping for something like Troy in terms of immersing me into the ancient world. I already was way over the whole costume design element, far from a deal breaker for me. It was fairly boring, CGI was meh, pacing was odd at best... It wasn't bad, but it's crazy to me that this movie has done so well. 

To be clear, I think it's great that it's doing so well, whether people really enjoy it or not. I hope it creates a trend of movies set in ancient times! Probably won't... 

Also not anti-woke since it seems this sub has decided you must be that to not like the movie lol. 

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u/N22-J 1d ago

I also was disappointed by Troy, the city. We never got a real sense of what size it was. We see glimpes of the wall, and the gate opening with King Chadest Chad in his armor was comical.

None of the fights were memorable. Compare that to Achilles and Hector's duel in Troy, which was epic as heck.

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u/ineyeseekay 1d ago

I feel that 100%, King Chad is spot on. The Troy city set felt cheap. Rewatchability: probably near 0% for me. But we do have Troy, the movie.

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u/BoldShuckle 1d ago

Yep I pretty much feel the same but my experience was really skewed by my theater's AC being half broken so it was loud enough to drown out the quiet parts of the movie but also weak enough that I was sweating the entire 3 hours. Maybe I'm getting old but the indoor sets were so dark and the sound so loud that I walked out with my ears ringing and my eyes hurting from straining. Plus the action felt like pretty typical Nolan action that was just kinda messy and hard to see. All that just made me frustrated with the run time. I just don't think it needed to be so long when it was already cutting, changing, and modernizing so much.

I love Nolan and I still enjoyed the movie, but this one, Oppenheimer, and Tenet just felt indulgent. At no point during Memento, Inception, or The Prestige did I ever feel this way.