There Is Good and Evil. Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Isn’t Afraid to Say So.

The best parts of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey are the parts in which he simply tells the story of Homer’s original poem. This may seem like a low bar. It’s not. Over the years, it has proven oddly difficult for contemporary filmmakers to adapt this thrilling epic without distorting it, emptying it of its charm, or offering a modern “take.” The legend of Odysseus’s 10-year journey home from the Trojan War is so well-beloved and oft-retold, so unabashedly heroic in its proportions, that modern directors have sometimes seemed embarrassed to give The Odyssey its full due without undercutting it or putting an ironic spin on it.

Nolan doesn’t do that. He takes plenty of departures from the source material, but he stays pretty true to its overarching structure and spirit. To his great credit, his blockbuster film adaptation—released in theaters worldwide on Friday—largely lets Homer be Homer.