I'm also going to state I'm not a Nolan fanboi. In fact this is the first Nolan film I've ever seen.
I'm also also going to state that I think every "real critic" of this movie pulls out their Christoper Nolan(tm) kneepads when he puts out a film. If his name is on it, they're putting on those kneepads before they even see the thing.
I was lucky enough to see it on 70mm film IMAX. It's print 15 of 41. So I'm one of the tiny minority of people who got to see it "as the director intended it to be seen". I have a feeling you won't be surprised by the rest of my review.
Let's start with the whole IMAX thing. I get it. It's Nolan's signature move to film for IMAX. He uses the IMAX cameras. He's all about the aspect ratio. The projectors had to be physically modified to play his last movie. He needed a 200 pound metal surround (the blimp?) to reduce camera noise so the dialog could be heard. Woo IMAX man.
This film did not make good use of that sweet, sweet aspect ratio. There's so few scenes that truly lend themselves to it that there was no reason to film the whole thing on IMAX cameras, except that it's Nolan. Even the scenes that were not too bad in IMAX are getting chopped down for general release.
Let's talk about general release. All this effort and money to make a full-on IMAX movie will have everything that he put into it lost for general release. The cropping is going to be ass when it goes from a more square aspect to the rectangle. There's really no way to fix it when the image is too tall for the screen. Something's getting cut. Generally the sides aren't as important but there's a hella lot of face time on this movie and by framing it for the square it's going to be weird in the rectangle.
So yeah. This movie didn't need to be IMAX. It was because it's Nolan and he loves IMAX. That's a failure on him as a director. It's a big failure. Because this movie wasn't going to be big enough to warrant what he insisted on doing.
But let's get into the story itself. Luckily I don't have to go into much detail because, well, it's the Odyssey.
How many times does this make rescuing Matt Damon? Three? Four? Does this one count because he kind of rescued himself? He's getting typecast as the guy who gets lost, maybe?
There's been talk about the more modern language in the film and I think it works for the tone that was being set. Changing "dad" to "father" would have made it faux highbrow stilted for no good reason. Keeping the dialogue more loose kept things accessible.
I didn't like Tom Holland as the son. The only way I can describe it is that he's too clean and soft, kind of like a puppy. Yeah, yeah. I get the story. But when he's supposed to act like the prince he is he's still too soft. It's not something he can help. It's how he looks. I couldn't take him seriously when he was trying to be serious.
The time stretch of twenty years away didn't work well with Anne Hathaway. She's not looking bad in the part but they didn't let her age enough. She didn't have a single grey hair. That sounds like a small gripe but it's consistent with style over substance. She's been on her own and in a time when life was hard. That woman would have had grey hair. Or maybe they just let you assume she dyed it. It might seem a small thing but those add up.
I can't remember how many time "Zeus's Law" of hospitality was brought up. Seriously. It was explained exactly once that you treat your guests well because any of them could be a god in disguise. It's a variant of the tradition of guestrights, where they weren't supposed to be worried for their safety. It's used as a plot device as to why they couldn't shiv and dump all the suitors and why Odysseus walked into various places without concern. Of course not everyone abided by it but that also became part of the point.
Robert Patterson was a slimy suitor and played it well without playing it up too much. He brought up good points to Penelope as to why she should marry him, even though he is slimy. For the time he was actually doing the right things. They were the slimy right things, tho.
Anyway. Lots of people talking. Lots of swordfights. Lots of boats going up and down on the water. Lots of incorrect armor. An ending that would fit nicely in any generic action movie. And pretty much a movie you'll forget when you walk out the door.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, memorable about this movie for me. It wasn't too much of a hardship to sit and watch for three hours because the story was epic that way. Epic in scope, not in quality. I couldn't get invested in any of the characters because we all know what's going to happen so what's the point? The actors did their part but no one was exceptional in any way. It's like the color scheme of the movie - a smear of blah.
There's my review. It goes against the grain of all the movie critic reviews. It's lining up with the "real person" reviews, when those people didn't buy their own sets of Christopher Nolan(tm) kneepads. Even my Nolan loving movie buddy wasn't impressed by this. There was sporadic applause at the end from a sold-out show that had about half of the people from freaking out of state in attendance.
Mayhaps Mr. Nolan is wearing out his welcome when it comes to trying to make grand sweeping epics on IMAX and should take a step back from it for a decade or so. Maybe try his hand at making a movie meant for general release instead of ego stroking.
Was that last bit too much? Maybe. But this movie feels kind of like Spielberg and "Disclosure Day". Something that shouldn't have been given so much money by the studio just because of who wanted to make it.
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