There is nothing essentially groundbreaking about about Christopher Nolan’s masterly epic. Everything that has gone into this adaption of Homer’s 2,800 year old, 12,000 line poem is what goes into making every great film: acting, photography, editing, script and, most crucially in my book, pace. The film’s three tense hours elapse with the speed of a riptide.
True, for the first time an entire movie has been shot with IMAX cameras. They are so noisy and heavy they had to develop new ways of silencing and schlepping the machines over land and sea-scapes.
Yet the resulting film feels constructed from the same elements that have made cinema magic since the talkies. In this film of sirens, giants, and a terrifying Cyclops, what stands out are not the effects but a stunningly skilful use of one of cinema’s most dependable techniques – the simple flashback.
The first is from a nameless bard such as Homer himself (who gets a writing credit alongside Nolan) as he holds court with his tale of Odysseus’s feats of war, His rude audience are the suiters and freeloaders who wait in absent Odysseus’s palace for the chance to marry his queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway). She and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) are waiting nervously for his return decades after he left to conquer Troy.
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.