I Watched The Odyssey.

So, I went to the movies specifically to watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and for a three hours long movie, I didn't feel the time pass at all. The Odyssey is based on an ancient Greek epic poem written thousands of years ago, but aside from that, I have zero historical background on it. This review is purely based on Nolan’s film interpretation, and there are full spoilers below—so if you haven't seen it yet, bookmark this and come back later.

The whole nightmare kicks off with the Trojan War. For context on why this war even started: Prince Paris of Troy ran off with Helen, who was married to King Menelaus of Sparta. Because every Greek king (including Odysseus) had previously sworn a sacred oath to defend Helen’s marriage, Odysseus was dragged away from his wife Penelope and his newborn baby, Telemachus, to fight a 10-year war he didn't even want.

To me, Odysseus is the ultimate morally gray guy—he isn't purely good, and he isn't purely bad, he's just trying to survive and get his men back home. The movie starts with a storyteller in a banquet hall—played by Travis Scott(which was a jumpscare) recounting the legendary Trojan Horse. But instead of showing a shiny wooden toy on wheels, Nolan makes it this terrifying, metal hulk half-buried on a beach that the Greeks had to drag on logs. Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men were crammed inside for days in the heat, surrounded by the stench of dead soldiers. The massacre that follows during the sack of Troy is harrowing; Odysseus conceived the Horse to win the war, but the horror in his eyes shows he knows what he unleashed can never be undone.

Right out of the gate, Agamemnon (played by Benny Safdie), who was the commander-in-chief of the Greek army and Odysseus's top ally, was out here aura-farming through the entire Trojan siege, sacrificing his own daughter, Iphigenia, just to get favorable winds for his warships(what the fuck???) After the war, he goes back home and was treated like royalty. I mean he was bathed, had oil on his beautiful curly hair—he experienced a wonderful homecoming, only to get rightfully sliced up on his bed by his wife Clytemnestra (Lupita Nyong'o) as revenge. Absolutely embarrassing end for a king, but totally deserved. (And shoutout to Lupita for pulling off a dual role here as both Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy!).

After Troy falls, chaos begins. First stop: Polyphemus. That scene where Odysseus enters Poseidon's son’s cave and makes his men sit there and wait for the owner was surprising to me. I actually expected him to leave with the sheeps. But you know what surprised me even more? Watching Polyphemus eat his crew one by one. I found it unfair, especially when Odysseus could have just grabbed the sheep and bounced. But Odysseus also went too far by stabbing Polyphemus's eyes with a flaming log. That act cursed his entire fleet and made Poseidon ruin his life for the next decade.

Then they land on Circe’s island, and that pig scene was straight-up unsettling. I caught that subtle dig when Circe (Samantha Morton) turned his soldiers back into humans and told them to return to their "fake forms"—implying those men were pigs at heart all along.

From there, things get even crazier. You watch his crew get picked off one by one—whether it's getting lured by the haunting score during the Siren scene, or getting torn apart by Scylla while trying to navigate past a giant whirlpool. One of the things that made me laugh out loud was when they got to an island and saw a young girl in armor. All they did was ask for food, but they ended up getting attacked by giants lmao.

By the time Odysseus takes a detour through the Underworld, he encounters Agamemnon’s bitter ghost. In life, they were brothers-in-arms, but in death, Agamemnon warns Odysseus not to trust anyone and never to expect a glorious homecoming, explicitly telling him to enter Ithaca in disguise.

Which brings me to Calypso’s island. I saw some people online whining that Odysseus "cheated" on his wife, but are we ignoring the fact that Charlize Theron’s character literally held him hostage, raped him and fed him enchanted lotus flowers to wipe his memory? The man didn't even know his own name half the time; give him a break!

Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is carrying the entire kingdom on her back. She ruled for 20 years, fending off a house full of parasitic suitors led by a ridiculously smug Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Yet nobody took her seriously because she was a woman. I loved the scene where Telemachus (Tom Holland) whined about the throne being "empty," and Penelope immediately called out his misogyny. Speaking of her son, Telemachus was annoyingly weak for most of the movie. Like, you are the son of Odysseus, damn it! Stand up!

By the time a washed-up, ragged Odysseus finally washes ashore on Ithaca, he doesn't get a grand hero's entrance. He has to disguise himself as a literal beggar, haunted by visions of Athena (Zendaya) that look suspiciously like the Trojan priestess his men killed during the sack of Troy. Now, I actually thought Odysseus killed Athena during his hallucinations, but that’s not what happened. During the invasion of Troy, Greek soldiers desecrated Athena’s temple and beheaded a Trojan priestess (also played by Zendaya). The "Athena" that Odysseus keeps seeing throughout the film is the goddess adopting that slain priestess's face to haunt his conscience and a guilt-induced hallucination of his own war crimes.

It all builds up to that insane final act in the banquet hall. Penelope sets up the bow-stringing challenge knowing none of those arrogant suitors can do it. When disguised Odysseus steps up, strings the bow effortlessly, and shoots an arrow straight through a soldier's throat, the suitors went dead silent. What followed was a bloodbath. Telemachus finally grew a backbone and fought alongside his dad, and together they wiped out every single suitor in the room.

Finally, The Odyssey isn't just an epic action movie. At its core, the film shows us that winning a war isn't actually winning if you lose your humanity in the process. We like to think of heroes as these larger-than-life figures who save the day, but Odysseus comes home as wrecked beggar. It’s a pretty bleak look at society: no matter how many centuries pass, humans keep making the same mistakes, fighting brutal wars for questionable reasons, and pretending the survivors can just come back home and act normal like nothing ever happened.

On top of that, the movie is a wild meditation on the power of storytelling itself. From Travis Scott’s bard opening the film to Odysseus constantly bending the truth to survive, Nolan shows us that history is just a bunch of stories we tell ourselves to make sense of absolute chaos. Did Odysseus really fight a giant one-eyed monster, or was he just trying to make an excuse for why he got his entire crew killed because of his own ego? The film leaves room for both, proving that memory and myth are fluid. It’s a story about how we use tales of "monsters" and "gods" to mask the terrifying things that regular humans do to each other.

At the end of the day, Christopher Nolan took a mandatory high school reading assignment and turned it into one of the most intense, gripping blockbusters of the decade. It’s funny, it’s horrifying, it’s unhinged at times, and it gives every actor room to flourish. When the credits rolled, I remember staring at the screen realizing that "winning" a war just means surviving long enough to clean up the mess you made. If you haven't seen it in a theater yet, stop making excuses, buy a ticket, and go experience this masterpiece for yourself. Easily a 10/10 watch.