Hello all, it’s been a while! Over the past month or so, I’ve had the pleasure of watching two excellent films in theatre – two films which have now both broken $1.5 billion at the box office, with one of them currently sitting as the 4th highest-grossing film of all-time.
The two films I am talking about are, of course, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. While Brand New Day has a higher box office return so far, The Odyssey is now the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, a feat which is equally impressive.
So, is cinema back? Do these movies live up to the immense hype that they’ve received? Let’s talk about it.
The Odyssey
Based on Homer’s epic poem Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a true blockbuster in every sense of the word, but one that does not fall into the mistakes of most other blockbusters.
Led by a surprisingly strong performance from Matt Damon as Odysseus, The Odyssey reimagines the protagonist as a man very much uncertain about his own morality, as opposed to the unapologetic righteous hero that he is portrayed as in Homer’s original poem. While scholars of Ancient Greece, including Odyssey translator Emily Wilson, have criticized these “inaccuracies”, I do not believe that they inherently make the film any worse.
Critics like Wilson have claimed that Nolan’s adaptation lacks accuracy and depth. To the first point, I don’t believe that this matters all too much. Odyssey is a story. There are gigantic Cyclops’ and other fictional beasts walking around. Nolan’s changes are not a failure of historical accuracy; they are stylistic changes to a fictional story. If the story carries emotional resonance and is otherwise appealing, creative liberties are a meaningful tool to be used by the director. This is what an adaptation is.
To Wilson’s second point, I can’t even fathom how one draws the conclusion that this film lacks depth. I suppose that if you’re looking at this film through the lens of the stakes of true historical Greeks, then the motivations of the characters may indeed be confusing. But as I’ve established, this is not how we should treat adaptations.
To Emily Wilson, a PhD classicist, the ways that these characters act may be jarring. But to modern audiences, The Odyssey tells a very compelling story about a hero who is motivated to return home, and who expresses doubts of morality in the process. To her credit, Wilson engages fairly with this point, and recommends that others see the film in theatres, conceding that there’s a lot to enjoy.
Beyond this point, there is simply so much to love about Nolan’s take on Odyssey. As is usual with Nolan, every set, free from any CGI, is stunning. When my brother told me that a large portion of the film was actually shot on open water, I understood why I found the sets so enthralling. When he told me that the film came in under budget, I was shocked at just how good Nolan has gotten at finding creative ways to avoid computer generation. The film looked phenomenal in a standard theatre; I can’t imagine how it’d have looked in Imax.
In summary, The Odyssey did not just net $1.5 billion at the box office for nothing. It’s an incredible telling of a legendary story that deserves all the love that it has gotten. And I hope that Emily Wilson will be happy to know that this film has certainly inspired thousands of young people around the world to study Greek society further.
10/10
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
This review contains minor spoilers.
The 4th installment of the MCU’s Spider-Man films, Brand New Day feels simultaneously like the most high-stakes and the most grounded MCU Spider-Man movie yet, at least since Homecoming for the latter.
Following Peter Parker (Tom Holland) as he navigates through the aftermath of No Way Home, Brand New Day showcases a more mature Spider-Man living through the life that he had hoped he could avoid.
Perhaps the greatest thing that this film did is that it really paid homage to the comic books and other source material that it draws from. Between recreating a plethora of iconic comic panels and introducing (or reintroducing) several characters not often utilized by the MCU, Brand New Day puts itself into a small list of movies that make you feel like you’re watching a comic book.
The first half of Brand New is incredible and often put the viewer in the driver’s seat by feeling a lot like a plotline in an Insomniac Spider-Man game, but this plotline ultimately reveals itself as a MacGuffin of sorts. Without saying too much, I will just say that I was thoroughly surprised at the misdirection that director Destin Daniel Cretton gave us.
This movie is creepy when it wants to be, devastatingly sad when it wants to be, and completely filled with hype moments when it wants to be. Brand New Day nails the fundamentals of any Spider-Man movie, feels perhaps more authentically NYC than any other one, and despite the lack of a household-name villain, provides major implications for future MCU projects.
For the stunning soundtrack, strong emotional plot, vast array of fun characters, and so much more, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the best installments in its franchise, and one that you should watch ASAP.
9/10
Want to know what I think about a movie? Email me at [email protected] and who knows? Maybe your suggestions will be my next watch and review!
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