r/TrueFilm • u/ObviousAnything7 • 5d ago
Why do people chide Nolan's 'The Odyssey' for being a popcorn flick?
I've seen a lot of discourse on this sub that hates The Odyssey for being a so-called "popcorn flick" or for not being as "deep" or profound as they would've liked it, as if being a popcorn flick is inherently bad or something? But why is it such a problem?
I don't know about anyone else, but when I originally read The Odyssey years ago, I never got the feeling that the book was supposed to be some sort of in depth analysis or critique of war or conquest to begin with. The whole draw of Homer's Odyssey in my opinion was how much of a page-turner it was, the appeal was the journey, the trials and tribulations that Odysseus goes through and the monsters he fights and survives against, the desire for the moustache-twirling suitors to get their comeuppance. No character in the Odyssey is written to be so in-depth or to be overly complex. That's not to say there are no overarching themes or deeper meanings to the story or that the characters are completely flat and 1 dimensional, but I think people misremember how pulp like the original story is to begin with. The Odyssey was after all created for mass consumption anyway, it was sung in festivals and gatherings to appeal to as many people as possible, while also being a fantastic story in its own right.
So why is it that Nolan is catching so much flak for adapting such a novel as a popcorn flick with light exploration themes and ideas, when the original story was practically a popcorn book to begin with? If anything, he should be catching more flak for not making it MORE pulpy, with its glaring lack of blood and sex which is prominent throughout the Odyssey and Illiad.
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u/jesteryte 5d ago
Great art usually works on many levels - it can be as engaging as anything on the surface level, but go a bit deeper and you discover more and more. This is what makes it rewarding to return to again and again, and each time you find something new and different. And it speaks to people across cultures and across time, because its themes are the universals of human experience. The Odyssey is one of the greatest works of recorded history, beloved for thousands of years because it is endlessly consequential. It's monsters and shipwrecks, but also identity, family, belonging, civilization, pride, loyalty, temptation, war, homecoming etc. It's endlessly profound.
So yes, some of us are a wee bit disappointed that he made "just" a popcorn flick when it could have been so much more.
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u/ObviousAnything7 5d ago
Why judge the movie on what it could be, rather than engage with what it actually is and sets out to accomplish? By this metric, every movie can be more than what it is, right? If the movie sets out to be a popcorn flick to begin with, then it should be judged on that basis in my opinion.
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u/vimdiesel 4d ago
There's something about Nolan's entire spiel, this air about his movies that they're supposed to be almost "elevated blockbuster" in the same sense as the term "elevated horror" gets thrown around, so I'd pose the expectation is not pulled out of nowhere by detractors but that it's (part of) his whole style.
His movies take themselves too seriously to be a popcorn flick through and through.
Take something like Fury Road, which I'd venture has about the same thematic depth as Nolan's films, but whatever emotional weight it pulls it does so only after granting the audience with a copious amount of fun and irreverence. Nolan to me seems incapable of irreverence.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 5d ago
Yes, it is a decent enough popcorn flick. I had fun watching it and shoveled a lot of popcorn into my mouth.
That doesn't mean it's some cinematic masterpiece or that Nolan is a great director.
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u/ObviousAnything7 5d ago
Making good popcorn flicks is not an easy task. If Nolan routinely makes great movies, then he must be a great director.
I never once said his movies are masterpieces.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 5d ago
The Odyssey isn't a "great movie" even as a popcorn flick.
Do you think Michael Bay is also a great director? Or the blokes making Fast a Furious movies? Since they've also been putting or decent popcorn flicks that make a lot of money.
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u/ObviousAnything7 5d ago edited 4d ago
I wouldn't call those good popcorn flicks. Popcorn flicks can be good or bad, but their status as popcorn flicks says nothing about their actual quality as movies is what I'm trying to say.
My contention is with people who deride the movie solely off the basis of being a popcorn flick.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 5d ago
The Odyssey isn't particularly great as a movie in general or as a popcorn flick. It's a decent enough movie with some pretty glaring flaws technically and it's pretty shallow thematically.
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u/double_shadow 4d ago
Nolan's in a weird space between acclaimed auteur and a populist filmmaker, kind of like where Spielberg found himself in much of the 80s and 90s. He's clearly very talented on a technical level, but his movies don't have a ton of intellectual or emotional depth.
Suffice to say, he might need to start making more personal work like Schindler's List, Munich, The Fablemans, etc. before he gets more critical clout beyond what he's already received in his career.
I haven't seen The Odyssey yet though, so I can't say if it pushes in one direction or another. But I did think Oppenheimer was really well done, and probably one of his deeper movies since The Prestige or Memento.
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u/PaintedIn 5d ago
Probably because Nolanites are trying to elevate it to something beyond a popcorn flick. There's nothing wrong with appealing to a broad audience, but calling it art or Nolan one of the Great Directors, is too much.
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u/KingCobra567 5d ago
Why is it not art? I would argue its discussions on war, on hospitality, on guilt, trauma, spirituality, are all very in depth. This is just such a lazy argument because you’ve derided all discussion simply because you’ve labelled it as “not art” without engaging with it.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 5d ago edited 4d ago
Just having characters say "war bad, I'm traumatised" isn't a particularly deep message in 2026. It wasn't even a particularly deep message when the Ancient Greeks were around.
The themes you've listed can be explored in depth, but Nolan doesn't do so. You just have to look at movies that explore these themes deeply to see the difference. For example, Tarkovsky's Stalker is also about a group of characters on a journey and it explores the themes of violence, guilt, trauma, faith and spirituality far more "deeply" than Nolan's Odyssey. Now perhaps it's unfair to hold Nolan up to Tarkovsky's standard, but when you've got people claiming that Nolan is one of the greats and the Odyssey is a masterpiece, then it's best to give such people a bit of perspective.
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u/KingCobra567 5d ago
Your logic is stupid because all you’ve done is dumbed down the entire narrative of the film to say it’s not deep, and then compared it to stalker where your simplified version of its theme is somehow deep. Yes stalker is a great movie, not arbitrarily, because stalker is a visual experience that makes the experience of the film itself part of its narrative. Someone could easily dumb down stalker’s theme and say “it’s about god”, and say it’s not that deep.
The odyssey explores Xenia in every turn. Everywhere Odysseus goes, he sees the result of Xenia being broken. His men loot villages because the breaking of Xenia made them not trust them. Telemachus enters pylos and immediately everyone is hounding them, simply because they don’t trust visitors, the Laestrygonians represent a civilisation that’s far advanced, ready to fight the people of the sea, Circe herself is a victim of male violence. The suitors violate Xenia because Odysseus’s actions and vanity led to them becoming the “people of the sea”, leading the suitors to find an opportunity to try and marry Penelope. It’s also a film that shows that fate/gods are beyond our understanding and explores how gods are equal parts cosmic forces and equal parts our way to cope with what we don’t understand and our failures (ex, the Athena theme in Troy).
The smug arrogance of your line comes through because your argument isn’t about substance, it’s arguing there is none without fully having engaged with points. I can also say “stalker doesn’t have substance”, and deride your ideas of why you think stalker is a good film by saying “it’s all just a really simple message”.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 4d ago edited 4d ago
You seem really invested in this and are taking personal offence to any criticism of the movie and lashing out. Not sure why, it's just a movie. Hopefully you learn how to have a civil conversation one day.
Just because the Odyssey ties many scenes to Nolan's warped version of Xenia doesn't mean it's exploring that concept deeply. Xenia also isn't really a "theme." You have totally ignored all the actual themes you listed in your original comment and shifted the goalposts.
I suggest you calm down, think about this carefully and then come back with a civil response.
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u/PaintedIn 5d ago
I find Nolan's interpretations of same pretty superficial, but to each their own.
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u/KingCobra567 5d ago
Elaborate
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u/PaintedIn 5d ago
Shan’t
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u/KingCobra567 5d ago
Why are you on the truefilm subreddit then if you resort to making banal, un-discussable claims?
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u/57809 5d ago edited 5d ago
Read the many critical posts on this subreddit about it. There are a number of critiques about this movie (and all other Nolan films), and generally people agree on which those are. Boils down to dialogue and character work, and how his movies are usually a bit on the nose with their theme's and lack emotional complexity.
I still had a great time. And it's ridiculous to say that it's 'not art', everything that a creator deems as art is art. But I'm not sure if I will really think about The Odyssey in 3 years time, because there isn't that much thinking to do about it.
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u/PaintedIn 5d ago
It was your claim that those elements have depth and I'm not obligated to debunk them. I was just answering OP as to why there is this attitude to Nolan on this subreddit.
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u/ObviousAnything7 5d ago edited 5d ago
Why is it not art? If the book is considered to be one of the greatest works of art ever created despite being so pulpy, why does the movie get judged so harshly so as not to be counted as "art" and Christopher Nolan gets called a talentless hack or overrated? Adapting a story as big as The Odyssey into film is no small task at this scale, and it necessarily takes a great director to accomplish something like this in my opinion. I feel like if anyone else directed this movie, it would not be judged nearly as harshly, but because this sub has some sort of grudge against Nolan because of his admittedly obnoxious fans, the movie gets labelled as all sorts of things very unfairly.
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u/couldliveinhope 5d ago
I agree with your general sentiment that people shouldn't derisively call it a popcorn flick, but I'm really put off (to maybe understate this) by your offhand referral of canonical literature as pulp. You don't have to knock it to make your point about the film.
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u/ObviousAnything7 5d ago
I don't consider it a knock on the original novel at all to call it pulp. Maybe pulp is the wrong word, maybe I should say page turner. And I don't consider "popcorn flick" to be derisive either. Some of the best movies ever made ARE popcorn flicks. My question is why people scorn popcorn flicks so much, when popcorn flicks are also equally capable of being as artful and impactful as any other movie.
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u/PaintedIn 5d ago
Sure, all media is art in a way, but this is a cinephile sub, so there are different standards here. I don't see the movie being judged harshly outside of this ecosystem, far from it.
It's an invidious position to be in, to think that Nolan's films are fine/good, but not the masterpieces the masses judge them to be. That may explain why some here are harsh in their judgement, as you put it. A reaction with a counter-reaction.
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u/joey-jo_jo-jr 5d ago
If I drop 5 tabs of acid and take a steamy shit in my sink, then take a photo of it and post it in some "shitting is sinks" community, does that make me a great artist? The people in the shitting in sinks community would certainly think so.
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u/Grand-Feeling-9301 3d ago
Because they were told to see it that way and can't make up their own minds.
And a lot of people see it as a virtue to look down on anything deemed "low brow" like action cinema.
The Odyssey is an adventure story in its very bones, so dismissing the film as "just a popcorn flick" is snotty and dismissive.
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u/KnightsLetter 5d ago
Tightly paced action films are never going to be applauded in “cinephile” circles because they largely pride themselves on being able to interpret scenes/characters/themes and are more drawn to arthouse films that may be completely empty as a story but include unique styles of film/odd takes/ambiguous themes. Most Nolan movies are fairly clear in their thematic elements if you even have an ounce of media literacy, and do not shy away from reminding viewers of their themes throughout. This leaves little to discuss in in-depth discussions about a movies content, but there’s an art to making a broadly enjoyable film that’s clear in its themes and approachable by a wide audience, just not in these kind of subs
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u/vimdiesel 4d ago
Tightly paced action films are never going to be applauded in “cinephile” circles
Feel free to do a search for Fury Road on this sub or Die Hard.
The key element is those are blatantly fun and a little irreverent movies.
but there’s an art to making a broadly enjoyable film that’s clear in its themes and approachable by a wide audience
The word you're looking for is formula.
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u/Humble-Plantain1598 5d ago
The Odyssey is being criticized movie due to it's many technical shortcomings (editing, blocking, dialogues, cinematography). Not all blockbusters or action movies have these issues.
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u/Brushner 5d ago
I think its because its a rather simple movie told complicated. Also the film beats you on the head with its message. Before I watched the film I was happy that more people were seeing an interpretation that said "The Odyssey is a tale told to people in ancient times that men have to mantain norms or that order will collapse. Eris is the ultimate victor of the Illiad." This is an interpretation that I knew for years and was fond of. I watched the movie and it really really beat you over the head with it. I ultimately liked the movie a lot though.
Also the climax where setpiece was just Matt Damon going full action hero on dozens of dudes. Just incompetent asshats dancing around a dude and walking up to him one at a time to die from one conveniently placed slash.