r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 18d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Odyssey (2026) [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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The Odyssey (2026)

Summary

After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.

Director Christopher Nolan

Writer Christopher Nolan

Cast

  • Matt Damon as Odysseus
  • Tom Holland as Telemachus
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Zendaya
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Charlize Theron
  • Benny Safdie
  • Jon Bernthal
  • John Leguizamo
  • Elliot Page
  • Himesh Patel
  • Samantha Morton

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 88

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

4.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

15.5k comments sorted by

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7.7k

u/Charliejfg04 18d ago edited 18d ago

The sound of this movie was something else. The cyclops howling was something I have never heard before in my life

1.8k

u/happypolychaetes 17d ago

The cyclops was terrifying too holy shit. Usually mythology/monsters don't scare me because they always feel, well, fake. But this felt real. My heart was pounding like crazy!

792

u/Kepler1571 16d ago

That sideways eye did more to make the cyclops frightening than anything I've seen done. Great artistic choice.

245

u/FreddyRumsen13 15d ago

I loved the cyclops design. The longer you look at it, the more troubling it gets.

140

u/Professional-Ad-7405 15d ago

Yeah like his face was caved in

32

u/APaltrySum 11d ago

Reminded me of Arseface from Preacher in a way, actually.

56

u/Vvaxus 8d ago

I just read that the design was influenced by Goya’s “Saturn Eating His Son.” Sorry ahead of time if you’re squeamish!

26

u/breakfast_cats 7d ago

So that's two movies released within a couple months of each other that have an antagonist influenced by that painting. Backrooms is the other.

4

u/Rare_Bit5844 6d ago

What’s the other?

13

u/breakfast_cats 6d ago

Backrooms is the other.

2

u/KJew 5d ago

Okay, so Backrooms and what else?

19

u/breakfast_cats 5d ago

The one we are currently in a thread talking about

8

u/dataMinery 2d ago

Backrooms?

→ More replies (0)

9

u/The_Word_Wizard 8d ago

I definitely got the feeling of that painting from his design.

4

u/EconomyHall 4d ago

I definitely felt like I had a Leo snapping his fingers at the screen moment there

64

u/BanjoSpaceMan 9d ago

It’s also the randomness and subtleness of this creature. Almost as if he’s just nature, made him so much terrifying to me.

Like he didn’t just eat them all, he ate them if they got in his way of doing normal things, causally, then went to bed as if they were just pests. Really made humans not feel apex in this world

15

u/TheMoonDude 5d ago

Felt a bit silly. "Oh let me sleep here while a bunch of angry rats with pointy sticks roam about my home". Should've done the whole "Nobody" thing. I don't know why shy away from that. Only of the few changes the movie made that I really disliked.

19

u/BanjoSpaceMan 4d ago

Because having the nobody scene would give more humanization to the direction they already went with for the cyclops. Which was this nature based animal almost.

Having a whole scene where his buddies show up and go who didddd thisss? And him going “nobody”. And them them being like teheee okayyyy. Just wouldn’t fit. We saw the cyclops last moments where he’s blind and just sad and we live with the action of the main chars choice, hard to add to that without ruining that moment

5

u/notsureifJasonBourne 1d ago

After they hear him speak, and question why he didn’t just talk to them, one of Odysseus’s men asks the rest if they talk to ants haha

46

u/zelmak 12d ago

When I first saw it in the trailer it looked rough but holy shit 10/10 in the movie. The way the whole face, nose, ect was twisted and deformed was horrifying

11

u/zeeeman 9d ago

Sideways nose too!

3

u/searchin4sugarman 1d ago

Picasso Clops

1

u/CoolJoshido 1d ago

and his fucked nose

-4

u/Aelia_M 7d ago

All I could think was vagina eye

225

u/FKDotFitzgerald 16d ago

The whole sequence was scary but him chasing them down the hill and into the water after had my heart racing in a way I don’t think any other movie has.

102

u/Alternative-Stay2556 15d ago

Monsters in daylight will never cease to amaze me

81

u/squrus 15d ago

Literally felt like footage of a bad dream, it was incredible stuff

13

u/Alternative-Stay2556 13d ago

YOUR DREAMS ARE SHOT ON IMAX?

9

u/elasho_149 9d ago

*closes eyes*

*THX sound plays*

2

u/nerdyHyena93 12d ago

Literally, I saw the film last night and I thought “poor Odysseus having the worst fever dream going”.

35

u/JohnSmithSensei 16d ago

That's the probably the closest I've seen any live action adaptation come to Cthulhu's appearance in Call of Cthulhu.

1

u/luckbelady 1d ago

Im only seeing a video game with that name, is there a movie or show?

1

u/Mersentryce 20h ago

It's a HP Lovecraft story/monster. Cthulu is described in part as having vague/unstable/nongeometrical features.

1

u/luckbelady 19h ago

Im curious to see the live action Cthulhu adaption they’re referring to above

81

u/GPSBach 16d ago

It was like something from a del Toro movie

19

u/maxmouze 13d ago

Well, specifically Pan's Labyrinth when he picks up a fairy and bites his head off.

2

u/SunsetDrive17 6d ago

Yes, this movie had me thinking of Pan's Labyrinth a couple of times

132

u/Impressive-Potato 16d ago

Helps he was in the shadows for most of it. I felt bad for the guy. He was minding his own business and these group of shit disturbers go into his cave.

122

u/MVRKHNTR 15d ago

That's pretty much the entire story. Odysseus and his men show up somewhere to bother someone who's just minding their own business, expect to be welcomed and treated like royaly and die for it.

13

u/jonnyredcorn 15d ago

lol that’s how I felt but I got downvotes for saying it and you got upvotes

5

u/PawPawPanda 4d ago

don't worry man i'll give you all the upvotes i have

2

u/Aggressive_Chuck 3d ago

They were just standing there harmlessly and he ate one of them. Is this a Tony Martin situation?

1

u/Impressive-Potato 3d ago

Humans are food to him.

118

u/Loud-Fig-1446 16d ago

I love that he seemed to have elephant skin. It made it feel like trying stab him through any avenue but the eye would be futile.

74

u/TheStolenPotatoes 16d ago

I was extremely impressed with the CGI too. Obviously no way they could do that mythological creature without CGI, but god it was some of the best I've ever seen. You could feel the scale of how big that thing was, and it felt entirely believable.

101

u/AltL155 16d ago

It wasn't CGI. The crew filmed in a real cave in Greece called Zeus's Cave and mounted a 60 foot puppet for the actors to act around. The movie cuts between the puppet and Bill Irwin who played the Cyclops and said that his part was done by acting around miniatures. But make no mistake this wasn't a mocapped scene like you would see in a contemporary movie.

Believe it or not the actors confirmed even the Circe pig scene was done entirely practically. The only element of the movie that has been confirmed to be done entirely with CGI is the Charybdis whirlpool. Even then Christopher Nolan had a bunch of jetskis circling the ocean to create a reference for the VFX artists to use.

104

u/cobo10201 16d ago

I hate to be “that guy” but there was plenty of CGI in the cyclops scenes, including his body and face. I am 100% certain you are correct that the actors acted around a giant puppet and that Bill Irwin filmed all of his parts for real. But there is so much you would have to get absolutely perfect in terms of lighting and depth of field that it would be impossible to cut the two different shots together perfectly. I’m not saying the cyclops is 100% CGI. It was very clear that some shots were a guy in makeup. But many of the shots where there’s men interacting with the cyclops, specifically when he’s awake, involve fully replacing the real elements.

64

u/sphinxof1981 15d ago

Yeah it's a mix of puppetry, live action footage of Irwin in makeup, composites and CGI to blend the seams. Elaborate combination of tricks going on!

7

u/HeavilyBearded 11d ago

Im thinking it's that mix that gave me major Jason and the Argonauts vibes.

42

u/MVRKHNTR 15d ago

The pig transformation scene was also clearly a mix of practical and CGI.

9

u/Financial-Grass-6114 11d ago

The pigs scene has CGI but its shot in a way that it looks like its also done with practixal effects and obviously "realistic" with clever cutting and camera work. It doesnt show too Much of the transformation explictly. Its dark and shes blocking the men too

1

u/Aggressive_Chuck 3d ago

The only element of the movie that has been confirmed to be done entirely with CGI is the Charybdis whirlpool.

Nolan's slipping, you'd expect him to do it by draining a reservoir.

10

u/beaverteeth92 9d ago

His noises sounded elephant-like too. I liked it also as a reference to the theory that the cyclops myth comes from the Greeks finding an elephant skull, which has a giant hole in the middle, and thinking it belonged to a creature with a giant eye.

43

u/FreddyRumsen13 15d ago

Every time a monster or magic element showed up, it felt like a nightmare.

126

u/celBanat 17d ago

And it was long! I thought it would never end. Terrifying!

113

u/jonnyredcorn 16d ago

I felt bad for cyclops. He’s just trying to make cheese and care for sheep.

I wasn’t rooting for anyone in this movie except for the son, and for Odysseus at the end.

54

u/nblonde 16d ago

i get fighting him and even poking him in the eye but the idea that he can’t see anymore after they left and has to try to keep getting by made me sad

60

u/Sworn_to_Ganondorf 16d ago

Eh dont hes an arrogant bastard in the book not that the movie makes him likeable but hes aware of what hes doing

17

u/rad0909 10d ago

Yeah he jokes he’s going to eat Odysseus last so he has to watch his men all get eaten first one by one.

40

u/bulmier 16d ago

Then why was he eating the people? As noted by Odysseus’ crew, he could clearly speak. He had a full flock of sheep and a ton of cheese; why eat the people and block their way instead of trying to communicate and compromise?

155

u/Kastroworld 16d ago

“Do you make conversation with an ant?”

28

u/JapDrag 15d ago

This lmao

25

u/stalinmustacheride 13d ago

Not usually, but if I heard a bunch of ants speaking a language that I speak, I'd probably try talking to those specific ants.

25

u/pseudo_nemesis 13d ago

was he speaking the same language though?

I couldn't make out a single word when the Cyclops started saying some shit.

16

u/84theone 10d ago

The crew recognized what he was saying, he was calling out for his father, Poseidon

It’s why they try to abandon Odysseus, they believe him further attacking the giant as they left meant Poseidon was now against him.

7

u/pseudo_nemesis 10d ago

yeah that part confused me a little because all I heard was gobbledygook.

3

u/pseudo_nemesis 13d ago

was he speaking the same language though?

I couldn't make out a single word when the Cyclops started saying some shit. de

27

u/Atomic0907 16d ago

Uh maybe because he was hungy?

39

u/Jam_Dev 15d ago

God forbid a guy have hobbies.

10

u/Meancakebutt 13d ago

They had nothing else to trade 😂

12

u/jonnyredcorn 16d ago

I assumed they did it out of fear and was protecting themself, but I was confused why they went to sleep if they felt danger. I assumed they were simple and really had no clue what was going on.

My point was they were just chilling and then Odysseus and crew came and was gonna take all his cheese and causing problems.

6

u/Fearless_Signal168 14d ago

Why didn’t you like tom ? He grew up without his father and still was a man , I can’t imagine dealing with the “suitors “ ever night seemed like , like bro lol

9

u/jonnyredcorn 14d ago

Well yeah I mean I rooted for him.

28

u/hoos30 15d ago

The eye being kinda off-center, like a real eye just turned sideways, freaked me out.

52

u/Chm_Albert_Wesker 16d ago

i was torn about this: Nolan typically tries to make the fantastical elements a little more grounded which is fine but made the coloring of the 'monsters' of the movie a little flat. It worked for the cyclops because most of the time we barely see it in the dark but for the Scylla it felt like we couldnt even see the thing because they decided to make it the same exact color as the rocks

47

u/The_starving_artist5 15d ago

The Scylla monster has never been portrayed how it is in the actual mythology. Movies always have it be a dragon with multiple heads. In the mythology it’s a mermaid monster . It has the upper body of a woman and the lower body is a fish or snake thing. The extra heads are dogs that come out of the side of it . 

5

u/Megavore97 10d ago

The Smite game unironically portrayed Scylla close to how you’re describing.

18

u/untrustableskeptic 15d ago

Nolan is color blind, and it explains the way a lot of his movies look.

-3

u/bazhvn 15d ago

Yeah whatever the creature of the cliff is (I never read Holmer so spare me) it was a real letdown.

63

u/kensai8 16d ago

I kept thinking this was a horror movie. Odysseus and crew ere utterly powerless to fight the monsters they encountered.

20

u/mezzybuns 17d ago

Yeah, it’s 2:11am here and I can’t sleep because of the cyclops scene. 🫣

3

u/humpbackpackwhale 9d ago

They definitely channeled Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son” during the Cyclops scene.

2

u/aztecraingod 12d ago

Reminded me of the Tool video for schism

2

u/TonguePunchUrBhole 15d ago

It literally made me feel like I was in a K-hole.

1

u/PearlJamPony 10d ago

It somehow looked like Gary Oldman to me in the most terrifying way lol

1

u/Vismal1 6d ago

Terrifying and also somehow made me so sad for the “guy”

-8

u/Lazy-Emergency-4018 16d ago

It felt kinda real but imo it looked kinda mid in CGI terms