The early reactions to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey keep rolling in ahead of Friday, and this one lands a lot further from the premiere-night raves than Universal would like.
Film Threat founder Chris Gore and co-host Alan Ng caught a screening and posted a no-spoiler, out-of-theater reaction to YouTube, and this time the duo split. Gore walked out “mixed.” Ng walked out done.
‘Bored Out Of My Mind’
Ng checked out early. “I was bored out of my mind,” he says, adding he was gone “pretty much from the beginning.” The sound didn’t help. He says he couldn’t make out the dialogue at first, and once he could, he realized “how bad the dialogue is.”
His verdict: “This is the most pretentious movie I’ve seen all year.” And the kicker: “I can’t wait to not see this movie again.” When the two wrapped up, the one-word summary of Ng’s reaction was simply “disaster.”
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Gore: ‘Not A Disaster,’ But Mixed
Gore lands softer, though it’s no rave. The modern-sounding accents “diminished the film” for him and made Nolan’s period epic play more like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, “a modern epic,” in his words. He also says parts drag, especially in the first half.
The highlights, per Gore: the Cyclops material, the fall of Troy, and Samantha Morton as the witch Circe, the same performance Nolan has been comparing to Heath Ledger’s Joker. He also calls the way the soldiers transform “very clever,” while declining to spoil how.
“I’m still marinating on it,” Gore says. “It’s not a disaster.” His final word is “mixed,” and unlike Ng, he’s going back for a second viewing.
‘They Might As Well Be Cameos’
As for the controversial casting that helped push the trailer past 700,000 dislikes, Gore says it’s mostly a non-issue on screen for one simple reason: screen time. “They might as well be cameos.” He did flag one line, noting Elliot Page’s Sinon gets called “the greatest soldier I’ve ever known” in the movie.
The music takes a hit too. “Usually the score carries the movie a lot. This one didn’t,” with “a lot of drumming,” plus a Travis Scott song over the end credits (Scott plays the film’s bard). The awards prediction: plenty of technical Oscars, and one wisecrack that it’s “guaranteed to win an Oscar for casting and there’s a reason for that.”
Watch the video:
Raves Meet Reality On Friday
The reaction drops the film right back into the split that has defined it: glowing premiere coverage on one side, record trailer dislikes and tracking that shows awareness stuck on the other. The scored reviews have since landed, and they broke hard toward the raves: The Odyssey debuted at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, the best Tomatometer score of Nolan’s career. The Odyssey opens Friday, July 17, with its exclusive IMAX run, and the paying audience settles it from there.
Gore admits there’s “a lot I want to say that I can’t” in a spoiler-free reaction, with full reviews coming on Film Threat‘s Wednesday and Friday shows. The duo’s last out-of-theater reaction was Supergirl, which Gore called “terrible”, and the box office backed him up.
For more, head on over to our guide on everything we know about The Odyssey.
Matt McGloin is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Cosmic Book News, the independent entertainment news site he founded in 2008. He covers movies, comics, TV, video games and pop culture and has reported major industry scoops over the years, including revealing the Avengers: Endgame title ahead of its official announcement. Through Cosmic Book News, he helped Marvel Comics promote Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova through exclusive previews, artwork, and interviews, with the site also quoted in solicitations and on comic covers. He also reported on Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again retooling before it was later confirmed by the trades.
