The theme of returning home and turning back time has long been central to Christopher Nolan's films.

In "Interstellar," the astronauts painstakingly lose 23 years during space travel, a duration nearly equivalent to the time Odysseus spends away from Ithaca in "The Odyssey": a decade fighting the Trojan War, and another decade striving to return home.

To a remarkable degree, Nolan's "The Odyssey" — while remaining faithful to Homer's epic poem — feels unmistakably like a Nolan film, right down to its nonlinear structure.

The authorship of the epic poem, dated to the 7th or 8th century BC, is complex.

Yet the creator of this "Odyssey" is beyond question: an earthy, existential epic that ravishingly fuses ancient storytelling with contemporary IMAX-sized bravado.

As a story about a man whose cunning angers the gods, "The Odyssey" feels very much like a companion piece, if not a direct sequel, to "Oppenheimer."

Odysseus (Matt Damon, in the role of his life) is increasingly consumed by guilt over the violence and death he has caused after his cleverness led to the sack of Troy.

The release of any new Nolan spectacle inevitably triggers its own kind of assault, with avalanches of "masterpiece" proclamations.

(I'm not innocent.)

Yet while "The Odyssey," Nolan's first film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, does not skimp on grandeur, it works surprisingly well as a simpler, human-scale story.

The journey — you may have heard, it’s about the journey — is occasionally a bit clunky, and the unmistakable Nolan-esque quality of the production, not to mention the historical significance of the story, inevitably reduces its freshness.

One could plausibly argue that Nolan has already made a film about a man trying to reunite with his family through layers of mind-bending illusion, and that film is called “Inception.”

Such is the challenge posed by urtexts.

While 'The Odyssey' is seldom anything less than captivating, it also serves as a thrilling adventure story.

At the very least, it stands as the definitive cinematic adaptation of one of literature's oldest tales—a considerable achievement for a filmmaker of relentless ambition.

It is only in Book 5 that Odysseus makes his entrance into Homer's epic, and Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay, similarly begins his narrative on Ithaca.

There, Odysseus' household is besieged by suitors feasting in pursuit of his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway).

Chief among them is Antinous, portrayed with sleazy perfection by Robert Pattinson.

For an actor who is often (pleasingly) at odds with the films surrounding him, Pattinson has never slipped into a role with such seamless ease.

Telemachus (Tom Holland, also well-cast), the young son of Penelope and Odysseus, decides to set out in search of his father.

Meanwhile, we catch up with Odysseus, weathered and white-bearded, after the fall of Troy.

His forced conscription by Agamemnon is shown in flashbacks.

Agamemnon is depicted with an imposing, Darth Vader-like presence and played by Benny Safdie, but the real standout is his hulking, mohawked helmet.

Such vivid details permeate Nolan’s richly textured film.

The gentle swaying of Odysseus’ longship off the Mediterranean coast is magnificent.

Some of Nolan’s and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s most remarkable work has emerged when they confront the elements (as in “Dunkirk”).

And “The Odyssey” is replete with tempestuous seas and enchanted isles.

If anything, the film could have pushed further; I was promised rosy-fingered dawns.

The opening line of Homer's epic, in Emily Wilson's translation—the version Nolan relied upon—characterizes Odysseus as "a complicated man."

James Joyce, whose "Ulysses" drew its inspiration from "The Odyssey," once remarked that whereas Hamlet is merely a son, Ulysses, or Odysseus, embodies the roles of father, husband, lover, and warrior.

In essence, he represents an Everyman, albeit an exceptionally astute one.

And Damon, the most congenial of Everymen, proves particularly attuned to the multifaceted nature of this archetypal hero.

We first encounter him as a soldier, leading a small fleet that has broken away from Agamemnon’s forces, steering a southerly course alongside his second-in-command Eurylochus (an excellent Himesh Patel).

Their journey unfolds through a series of episodic adventures: a cave confrontation with the Cyclops Polyphemus; an assault by the man-eating Laestrygonian giants in a pine forest; a meal with the enchantress Circe (Samantha Morton); and Odysseus’ seven-year sojourn with the sea nymph Calypso (a beguilingly sincere Charlize Theron).

One could argue that the film occasionally resembles a series of loosely connected set pieces, yet what remarkable set pieces they are!

This includes the episode of the Trojan horse—a fleeting reference in the poem but transformed here into a central spectacle.

It is evident that Nolan, who nearly directed a film about Troy over two decades ago, has long envisioned this sequence, which begins with the Trojan horse half-buried in the sand and culminates in the conflagration of Troy.

Each stage of Odysseus' journey offers Nolan a mythic arena in which to explore imagery that borders on the horrific.

I was most captivated by "The Odyssey" in its most surreal moments: the sight of a giant hand emerging from the shadows, and the meeting with the "shades" of Odysseus' dead army, rising from the dark soil of Hades.

“A time of apparent magic” is how the film is introduced.

Nolan has astutely chosen to keep the deities in the background.

Their powers are genuine, yet aside from Zendaya’s Athena, who appears as a confidante to Odysseus, the gods themselves remain off-screen.

That choice brings Nolan's *Odyssey*—and its themes of sacrifice, fidelity, and honour—closer to reality.

It also makes Nolan's decision to cast his film broadly all the more essential.

This is a story, passed down through centuries by singers and storytellers, that belongs to all of humanity.

Casting the film with a diverse range of actors, including Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, is not only legitimate for a purely mythical tale but also imbues the movie with contemporary vitality.

Seeing actors such as Elliot Page (unforgettable as a fallen soldier), John Leguizamo (as the loyal servant Eumaeus), and Damon in this ancient setting is a compelling reason to watch *The Odyssey*—and why Homer's repeatedly told tale remains worth revisiting.

If the present has no role, what is the point?

They did not have cameras in 700 BC, either.

Nolan’s “Odyssey” runs nearly three hours yet never drags.

The film is propelled as much by the tension between past and present as by Odysseus’s meandering journey.

Gender roles are scrutinised even as traditional masculinity is reinforced.

The poem’s conclusion, problematic due to its depiction of mass slaughter, is reimagined as a more palatable action-movie brawl.

Nonetheless, the essence of “The Odyssey” remains intact, and Odysseus’s struggle to atone for his errors while adhering to his principles feels revitalised.

Nolan, one might say, is in his element.

"The Odyssey," a Universal Pictures release arriving in theaters on Thursday, has been assigned an R rating by the Motion Picture Association on account of its violent content and some language.

With a runtime of 172 minutes, the film has garnered three and a half stars out of four.