If still after “Oppenheimer” there were any doubts about Christopher Nolan’s place among the all-time directors, those doubts have been silenced with a deafening roar.

“The Odyssey” is based on the famous story by the Greek poet Homer, and follows the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Matt Damon), who tries to return home following the Trojan War during the Late Bronze Age. The ensemble cast also includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron, as Christopher Nolan writes and directs.

I’m a pretty big fan of Christopher Nolan, especially his last outing, “Oppenheimer” (which is one of the best films of the decade). Nolan is his own brand, and one of the few directors who can sell a film on their name alone. As a big history nerd, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Nolan’s next film every since it was announced that it would be an adaptation of the famed “Odyssey,” and in true Nolan fashion he has brought the 2,700 year old story into the 21st century with a fury, updating it with modern themes and his trademark blockbuster flair.

Every Christopher Nolan film features a stacked cast, and this is no exception. Working almost as a Nolan: Endgame, the film features cast members from Nolan’s previous efforts, including “Inception” (Elliot Page), “Interstellar” (Anne Hathaway), “Tenet” (Robert Pattinson and Himesh Patel), and “Oppenheimer” (Matt Damon, James Renar, and Benny Safdie), while Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, and Charlize Theron do their first collaboration with the director. As Odysseus, Damon plays the home-starved king with a blend of ego and loyalty. He wants what is best for his men and return them to Ithaca, but at the same time has little moments of selfish or prideful behavior that makes us remember he’s human. To prepare for the role Damon didn’t shave for a year and cut his weight down to 167 pounds, so he really looks the part of an ancient man who has not seen his home in 20 years.

The rest of the cast is solid, with Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson as the standouts for me. Hathaway is having a bit of a resurgence year with this, the “Devil Wears Prada” sequel, and A24 film “Mother Mary” (and still has “The End of Oak Street” and “Verity” to come), but this will be the role that defines this era of her career. Hathaway’s Queen Penelope has a quiet demeanor about her and a fierce loyalty to the husband she hasn’t seen in two decades and raised a son without. Tom Holland does an alright job as Damon and Hathaway’s son, it is certainly the “most” acting he has had to do in his career, but when he is paired up against someone who can be as emotional as Hathaway or as energetic as Pattinson, he does tend to get outshined. Speaking of Pattinson, the man is having the time of his life as a spoiled suitor living in Penelope’s castle, and has two specific line deliveries that are pitch-perfect; he has quickly become one of my favorite working actors. Zendaya also has a simple, calming presence as the goddess Athena.

Nolan has long been an advocate for the use of practical effects over CGI, and some of the things he does here are nothing short of insane. Instead of creating the cyclops using special effects and having the actors follow a tennis ball on a stick, Nolan and his team built a 60-foot-tall animatronic puppet, which makes the cave the soldiers get trapped in feel even more claustrophobic. Other practical sequences include the witch Circe’s spells and the infamous Trojan Horse, and it all just really makes you appreciate a director like Nolan who is dedicated to the crafts of filmmaking in an age of flat-looking green screens and AI slop.

The sacking of Troy sequence, paired with a character narration, ranks among some of the best filmmaking Nolan has ever done. After “Oppenheimer” some people theorized that Nolan doesn’t have a warm view of humanity, and many of the themes he explored in that film are mirrored here. And while there are the same whispers of “man is forced to face the consequences of his devastating creation” like “Oppenheimer,” I do think Nolan displays a trust in human beings on a personal level, how the average person will protect their family or warmly welcome a stranger. It is just the few that give into our darker urges that lead us to ruin (his implementation of the Sea Peoples, a to-this-day unidentified army that led to the downfall of the Bronze Age civilization, is brilliant).

I’m a bit of a history nerd, so one issue I personally have with the film are the sets and costumes. While on their own they’re well-made, the world is largely historically inaccurate. Not that I need a perfect history lesson while I’m watching a $250 million movie about gods and monsters, but some soldiers’ uniforms look more like Ancient Romans instead of Bronze Age Greek, while some of Tom Holland’s outfits look like he’s wearing a modern day crewneck and Charlize Theron appears to have just stepped off the set of a perfume commercial (the only exception I’ll make is Benny Safdie’s Agamemnon, who has a vertebrate dangling off his helmet and wears a black chrome armor; it makes him look like an ancient Darth Vader so the cool outweighs the inaccuracies). The castles and temples all have an almost blocky brutalist style to them, and it doesn’t feel like we’re witnessing a world from 1050 BC (for all its faults, 2004’s “Troy,” which tells the “Iliad” half of the story, does a better job in the production design department). I also found some of the editing by Jennifer Lame to be a bit too quick, like characters and moments aren’t given a chance to breathe before cutting away to the next line delivery (as a whole, the film moves well, especially for three hours, but the smaller moments can be choppy).

“The Odyssey” is one of Nolan’s most impressive films to date, with an ending that recontextualizes the entire film (if not an entire war, fictional or not) and makes it all the deeper upon a rewatch. At three hours there is barely any fat that I feel could be trimmed, and my complaints about the costumes and sets aside (again, not that they look bad they just take me out of it every now and then on a personal level) there is so much detail to appreciate. If you can watch the film in IMAX (especially 70mm) then I implore you to, as it makes the scope and blues of the sea even more breathtaking and the dimly lit caves even more haunting, but any way to experience the world Nolan has created, bringing Homer’s words and lessons into a modern world currently consuming itself, is a treat and honor in itself.

Critics Rating: 9/10