The Odyssey Is Going To Get Review Bombed, But I Can Tell You The Controversies Are Overblown
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is one of the biggest releases on the 2026 movie calendar, and I can already tell that the movie is going to get review-bombed once the major review sites like Rotten Tomatoes open up. The movie, which hits IMAX screens this weekend, was immediately controversial for all kinds of reasons once the cast list was revealed and the first trailer dropped earlier this year. Well, I’ve seen the movie, and I think the controversies are way overblown.
People Want To Hate This Movie
A couple of weeks ago, when Universal dropped the final trailer for The Odyssey, it was immediately hit with hostility. Internet denizens immediately “ratioed” the YouTube video–meaning downvoting it with the hopes of burying it in the algorithm. As of this writing, the trailer video is sitting on more than 780,000 downvotes (to just 83,000 thumbs up). Some of that might just be a herd mentality to get in on the fun, but there is plenty of evidence out there in comment sections and editorials that people are not happy with the movie Nolan has made. At least, the movie they think Nolan has made.
If you haven’t read much into it, there are a few different buckets of complaints that have people fired up. The first is historically based. This is a group of people who are critical of the armor worn by Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men being incorrect for the Bronze Age, and the style of ship they are using to travel home from the Trojan War.
There is another bucket of people who are upset that the casting didn’t include more Greek actors, and, more pointedly, people who are upset that actors like Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o are in the movie at all. There is a third bucket of critics who don’t like some of the casual nature of the dialogue Nolan has used in his screenplay (and I actually fall into this category).
Let me tell you, all of these are all overblown.
Some Criticisms Are Just Not Right
Even before I saw the movie, I wasn’t all that concerned that these criticisms would affect how much I would enjoy it. After seeing it, I feel the same, with a small caveat. For starters, I think some of the criticisms are totally fair to discuss, like the armor, boats, and the dialogue, which I’ll get into. The casting “controversies” are not fair. This is a myth told by a modern filmmaker for a modern audience; as far as I’m concerned, anyone can play anyone.
The race and ethnicity of the actors is of zero concern for me. Less than zero. It’s no different than Kenneth Branagh casting Denzel Washington in his 1993 Shakespearean masterpiece Much Ado About Nothing. Is it period-accurate casting for Elizabethan England? Of course not, but Washington is one of the best actors ever, so I’m happy to see him in anything, especially doing Shakespeare. The same goes for all of the actors in the stacked cast of The Odyssey.
Others’ Criticisms Are Fair In The Right Context
When it comes to the historical nature of some complaints, I have more sympathy. I’m not a historian or a classicist, but I do really appreciate it when movies based on real history take that responsibility seriously. That said, the inaccuracy of the armor worn by the Greeks and the ships they traveled on really didn’t bother me in the slightest. I knew it wasn’t period-correct for what soldiers wore in Bronze Age Greece, but they looked cool, and a movie should look cool!
It looks great, and it honestly is more what I think of as “ancient” armor. Frankly, just look at an example of Bronze Age armor, the kind that would be period appropriate, and tell me it’s not hilarious looking. The armor looks ridiculous to a modern eye, and using it probably would have been way more distracting for most people in the audience (all due respect to the historians in the audience). In that regard, the ships match the armor.
Now, when it comes to the dialogue, well, honestly, I’m kind of with the complainers here. I didn’t like some of the overly casual nature of some of the lines. One thing that has been particularly focused on by some critics is Telemachus (Tom Holland) calling his parents “mom” and “dad.” I didn’t think that was going to bug me, but it did. It really took me out of the movie at times. Again, this is a modern filmmaker making a movie for a modern audience, so I’m not expecting Ancient Greek or anything, but there is a formality to the society in the story, and using words like “mom” and “dad” just felt out of step with that formality.
Nolan’s use of more casual modern language might not be my favorite creative decision here, but it hardly ruins the movie. It didn’t even factor in when I woke up this morning and wrote down my thoughts about the movie after sleeping on it. The Odyssey isn’t a perfect movie, by any means, but it is still one of the best of the year, and certainly one of my favorites. There are some choices I can nitpick, and a couple of places here or there where Nolan’s ambitious decision to film exclusively in IMAX may have actually hurt the overall product, but it’s so grand in scope and vision that those things are easily dismissed for the greater good.
This Is All Overblown
It’s worth noting that the actors who seem to have upset a lot of people, namely Page and Nyong’o, and to a lesser extent Travis Scott and Zendaya, don’t really have huge parts. Their collective screentime is minimal compared to Damon, Holland, and Anne Hathaway. More importantly, though, is that they are all legitimately great in their roles. Travis Scott’s role is an addition to the story that I really loved.
While we don’t all have to agree with the artistic choices in this book-to-screen adaptation, like the casting, the language, and the costumes, I do really appreciate that Nolan and company are taking a big swing here. So please, don’t listen to the peanut gallery chirping from the sidelines without having actually seen the movie.
