(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ODYSSEY")
MATT DAMON: (As Odysseus) No one could stand between me and home - not even the gods.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" is here, and some theaters started selling tickets for opening weekend a year ago. Now screenings as early as 3 a.m. are available. NPR critic Glen Weldon avoided the 3 a.m. rush. He got to see it earlier this week. Glen, there aren't too many directors, I guess, that people would trust with an epic story like this, but Christopher Nolan probably is on that list. How has he told this tale?
GLEN WELDON, HOST:
Well, I mean, this is pretty terrific. It delivers. It does exactly what it sets out to do. It transports you, right? I mean, this is old-school Hollywood cinema. And I didn't have your confidence, A. I was worried. When it was announced that Christopher Nolan was making "The Odyssey," my take was, this guy? - because as a filmmaker, yeah, he's given to a certain amount of spectacle. But this is the guy who likes to keep things really grounded and tactile and practical. And, you know, I think he's famously disinclined to the more -what? - emotive, expressionistic aspects of the human experience. Stuff like wonder and awe and fantasy, that's not his wheelhouse.
This is the guy, let's remember, who made the Batmobile looks like, you know, a giant military doorstep.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
WELDON: I was worried. I was worried he was going to make it all serious and dour and gray and take out the magic, take out the gods and monsters. And let's be real. If you take out the gods and monsters from "The Odyssey," all you're left with is a story about a deadbeat dad who goes out for a pack of smokes and keeps driving.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
WELDON: It's boring.
MARTÍNEZ: Yep.
WELDON: You need the gods and monsters. They're here. They're on the call sheet. They are bringing everything they need to. They're doing it with this epic sweep and grandeur on a huge Hollywood budget. This movie is made to get butts in seats and keep them there for three hours. And this is a time when I think both audiences and certainly the theater industry need something epic.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. All right. So Matt Damon plays Odysseus. How did he do? Is he kind of just Jason Bourne in sandals and a weirdo helmet?
WELDON: Yeah. Well, let me put it this way. In the poem, Odysseus really has only one trait. He is cunning. He is sly. He's full of guile. Matt Damon, fine actor, not my go-to guy for guile. You go to him for, like, two-fisted stand-up guy solidness - stolidness, right? But it works here because Nolan has turned Odysseus into a pretty conventional Hollywood action hero with an uber-conventional Hollywood narrative arc that involves processing guilt and remorse. And that's what Matt Damon can do, and he does it here. I mean, you know, this is not Homer's "Odyssey." The classical scholars are going to get their togas in a bunch, but this is Nolan's "Odyssey," and it works.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, you mentioned before how Christopher Nolan has a very particular way of making movies, and in this case, filming movies. Talk about his process and how it changes the viewing experience.
WELDON: Well, he filmed this using IMAX cameras entirely because he wanted it to be as big as possible and make it for the big screen and be as clear as possible. Every inch of the frame is crystal clear, and that's - required a lot of logistical innovation. He had to build boxes around the IMAX cameras because they're so loud that you couldn't hear dialogue. This is not digital AI slop. There is one scene I'm thinking of in particular involving the witch Circe, which you think, well, this has to be CGI, but it is entirely done with practical effects and puppets and camera placement. And epic films like this one can get away from even the best directors, but this guy shows up prepared. He knows exactly what he wants, and that commitment we talked about earlier to the tactile and to the practical - that serves him really well here because it gives all the fantastic elements of the film a real weight, a solidness, a reality, which is exactly what you cannot get with CGI and digital effects. That's something that's been missing from movies for a long time now.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's Glen Weldon, and he provides his own epic analysis about "The Odyssey" on the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. Glen, thanks a lot.
WELDON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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