Christopher Nolan’s $250 million action movie version of Homer’s ancient Greek poem is an entertaining way to hide from high temperatures for a few hours. Nolan’s trademark jumps and twists in narrative structure are relatively easy to follow, appropriate for The Odyssey’s nested tales. Unlike some of Nolan’s other films, The Odyssey is not boring, thanks to source material impossible to mess up entirely. It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – with about the same narrative and emotional depth.

Nolan revisits his usual themes: discontinuities of space and time, survival as triumph, drowning scenes, buildings engulfed in flames, a male character’s desperate quest to recover a female love object. Yet the film features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality. Matt Damon’s Odysseus gazes at shipwrecks and bloodbaths without agony of emotion. Human characters lack serious attention; even Argos the dog gets more adorableness.

The Homeric epic already adapted mythical traditions for archaic Greek concerns. Nolan’s movie hints at contemporary resonances but vision is too confused, characters too underdeveloped. The race-neutral casting – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – is not progressive; non-white actors play Black best friend roles aiding white protagonist. Nyong’o’s double part as Helen and Clytemnestra is hugely underwritten. Charlize Theron’s Calypso looks gorgeous but lacks the poem’s outraged, operatic speech about divine double standards.

Adaptations needn’t follow original exactly; best ones provide “strong misreadings.” Nolan’s first film Following (1998) understood dangers of tracking strangers, but knowing temptations isn’t avoiding them. Homer’s Odysseus suppresses desires; Nolan’s version has no restraint – every second jam-packed with incident, lights, noise, nothing at human scale. The film resembles other 21st-century epics like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, lacking stylish sparseness of Uberto Pasolini’s The Return (2024) starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche.