★★★★ (4 out of 4)
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is a cinema colossus that strides and struts across the screen in 70mm or Imax (what else?) on waves of roaring, ravishing sounds and images that thrill and delight even as they knock the wind out of you. Nolan’s been accused of hubris for taking on Homer’s classic, a foundational pillar of world literature from 700 B.C. and definitely before the advent of AI slop. Hubris, from the Greek, indicates excessive pride and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities. Nolan has swagger for sure, but he also has the skills, right there for all to see in everything from “The Dark Knight” to “Oppenheimer.” So why not challenge himself by going to the mountain with this unwieldy, unfilmable text? Nolan’s response to an artistic dare has always been the same—bring it on! And here in the best movie I’ve seen this year, Nolan shoots for the stars. Do you see much of that in blockbuster Hollywood? I don’t.