The Odyssey: An epic masterpiece

The Odyssey (2026) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated R, for violence, gore, dramatic intensity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.26

Not many screenwriters get to share a credit with Homer.

 

And Christopher Nolan is one of very few directors up to the challenge of the ancient Greek poet’s classic work.

 

Warriors three: Odysseus (Matt Damon, center), Cepheus (Jimmy Gonzales, left) and
Eurylochus (Himesh Patel) survey what's left of Troy, following their successful
siege of the city.

This is epic filmmaking on a truly grand scale, which is the only way to present a saga that has it all: gods and goddesses, men and monsters, full-scale battles, perilous sea voyages, and dastardly palace intrigue. Granted, Nolan skips some events, and minimizes the list of involved deities, but only scholars intimately familiar with Homer’s fabled poem will notice.

Nolan wisely holds our attention, during this three-hour masterpiece, by alternating the “money sequences” with quieter, even melancholy moments between primary characters. Indeed, judging by how Monday evening’s sold-out Sacramento crowd reacted, viewers were much more invested in what would become of Odysseus’ kingdom, during his absence, than with what he faced while struggling to return home.

 

Be prepared for a challenging initial character dump.

 

Nolan follows Homer’s template, opening the story in medias res — in the plot’s chronological middle — and then supplying What Came Before via flashbacks recounted by Odysseus and a few other key players.

 

Tensions are high in Ithaca, where 20 years have passed since King Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men joined Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in his army’s successful invasion of the city of Troy. During this time, Odysseus’ wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), has endured a palace invasion by an ever-expanding number of boorish suitors hoping to become her new husband.

 

She has held them at bay by promising to remarry when she finishes weaving a shroud for Odysseus’ aged father, Laertes ... but she secretly unweaves each day’s progress at night.

 

(And she has gotten away with this for 20 years? That doth raise an eyebrow or two.)

 

The suitors have remained at bay, in part, because Odysseus’ renown, skill and might leave a massive shadow, even in his absence. During one flashback, we see that he’s the only man able to string his bow, inevitably following that up with his favorite party trick: shooting an arrow through a series of bundled axe heads.

 

Odysseus and Penelope’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), has come of age during this time. But he’s more eager to find his father — or, at least, to learn if he’s alive — than challenging his mother for the throne.

 

But one of the suitors, Antinous (Robert Pattinson), has grown tired of waiting. His vile nature emerges early on, when he grossly insults Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Odysseus’ loyal, loquacious friend and swineherd. Although now blind, Eumaeus still is able to tell the young man what he’s doing wrong during a swordplay training session. Leguizamo exudes honor, honestly and loyalty.

 

Worse yet, Antinous contemptuously abuses Argus, Odysseus’ faithful and now quite aged dog. Pattinson oozes smarmy menace, with a scowl to match. (Do we hate Antinous? You betcha.)

 

Such behavior violates what becomes a crucial theme, as these events proceed: Zeus’ Law, the “guest friendship” decree that decrees how hosts should and should not act, and requires them to treat all guests with respect.

Frankenstein: Less than the sum of its parts

Frankenstein (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for bloody violence, gore and grisly images

Available via: Movie theaters and Netflix

By Derrick Bang

If this film doesn’t win an Academy Award for Tamara Deverell’s stunning production design, there is no justice.

 

Although initially delighted that he has brought life to a creation (Jacob Elordi, center) 
stitched together from scores of corpses, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) just as
quickly worries that he may have made a colossal mistakes.

And if the Oscars included a category for atmospheric dread, director/scripter Guillermo del Toro also would have that one locked up. He has been unsettling viewers since 1997’s Mimic and particularly 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. And only del Toro could have jump-started the goofy 1950s Creature from the Black Lagoon franchise, and transformed it into 2017’s brilliantly disorienting The Shape of Water, winning Oscars for Best Picture and Director in the process.

All this said, I wish del Toro had matched his new film’s visual dazzle with a similarly exhilarating script. His take has about as much in common with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece, as director James Whale’s 1931 adaptation. 

 

Which is to say, del Toro has taken serious liberties with the original plot and character roster. A few high points remain faithful to Shelley’s novel — along with occasional references to Prometheus, as befit the subtitle of Shelley’s novel (“The Modern Prometheus”) — but for the most part del Toro merely borrows the concept of Frankenstein and his monster.

 

That would be fine, if the results were more consistently engaging. At times — and I can’t believe I’m saying this about a del Toro film — the narrative is protracted and boring. As often has been the case with other filmmakers, one must be cautious about embarking upon a pet project which — in del Toro’s own words — has been a “quest” ever since he saw Whale’s film for the first time, at age 7.

 

Del Toro has moved the timeline half a century forward, to allow the key players a greater understanding of advances in electricity. The saga therefore begins in 1857, with a prelude aboard the Royal Danish Navy ship Horisont, trapped in arctic ice while hoping to reach the North Pole. While attempting to free the ship, crew members spot a badly injured man, and bring him aboard.

 

He barely has time to introduce himself as Baron Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), before the ship is attacked by a powerful, towering creature that demands Victor be surrendered to him. Ship’s Captain Andersen (Lars Mikkelsen) refuses, and six of his men are killed in the subsequent violent melee; the creature withstands all manner of gunshots and other damage.

 

The calmly resolute Andersen wins the moment only after using his blunderbuss to shatter the ice beneath the monster’s feet. It sinks into the icy waters.

 

“It’ll be back,” Frankenstein warns. “It can’t be killed.”

 

Emma: Love's labours crossed

Emma (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for brief partial nudity

By Derrick Bang 

Jane Austen, like Dickens and Shakespeare, never gets old.

 

Director Autumn de Wilde’s lavish adaptation of Emma was one of the early COVID casualties, initially scheduled for theatrical release in late February. The loss of that traditional debut is unfortunate, since the sumptuous efforts of cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, production designer Kave Quinn and costume designer Alexandra Byrne screamed for a big-screen showcase.

 

The unworldly Harriet (Mia Goth, left) hangs — like a worshipful puppy — on every
morsel of guidance supplied by Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy). Alas, as we're destined to
learn, Emma isn't worthy of such trust.

The film’s arrival on HBO is nonetheless welcome, and Eleanor Catton’s faithfully droll screenplay works just as well on a home screen. But there’s no question the lavish estate settings would have been even more stunning in a darkened movie theater.

 

We’ve not had a straight American adaptation since the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead role — and a nod to 1995’s Clueless, as a loose modern translation — so it’s definitely well past time to spend a few hours with Emma Woodhouse and her various friends, family and suitors.

 

Be advised: You may want to take notes, as quite a lot of characters are involved in this light-hearted period dramedy.

 

Anya Taylor-Joy is perfectly cast as the aristocratic Emma, not quite 21 years old, whose self-assurance is matched only by her determination to gift everybody with the benefit of her wisdom. Although culturally polished and well-intentioned, her inherent kindness often is overshadowed by a relentless tendency to meddle.

 

Indeed, her older sister’s brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn, technically too young for the role), likely would call Emma insufferably arrogant … but he’s too polite and refined to do so. Instead, they bicker and banter in a manner that allows maximum exposure to Austen’s piquant and slightly snarky dialogue. (She was so far ahead of her time.)

 

As the story begins, Emma’s longtime friend and former governess, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan), has just “married well,” and become wife to the aristocratic Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves). Having initially introduced them to each other, Emma takes credit for this successful union, and — after returning home, to the family estate at Hartfield — decides that she’s a born matchmaker.

 

Her next “project”: new friend Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), a 17-year-old pupil at a nearby girl’s boarding school. (When she and her fellow students parade about in their scarlet coats — which occurs numerous times, as this film proceeds — one can’t help thinking of Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline, with its “…twelve little girls in two straight lines.”)

A Cure for Wellness: Worse than any disease

A Cure for Wellness (2017) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for graphic nudity, rape, profanity, violence and highly disturbing images
By Derrick Bang

File this one under You’ve Got To Be Kidding.

Successful directors with runaway egos are to be feared. Sooner or later, many of them succumb to self-indulgent, often “long-nurtured” vanity projects that defy reason and emerge as ludicrously bloated and self-indulgent. Some badly dent or even ruin careers; others bankrupt studios.

Having been injured under suspicious circumstances, Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) decides
to explore the mysterious sanitarium where none of the resident clients show any
desire to leave.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas stumbled badly, respectively, with 1941 and Howard the Duck. Andy and Lana Wachowski blew their Matrix profits on Speed Racer. Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman still get taunted for Ishtar. Eddie Murphy simply didn’t survive the fallout from The Adventures of Pluto Nash; director Renny Harlan suffered the same fate, after Cutthroat Island. Joseph L. Mankiewicz nearly took down Fox, with Cleopatra. Michael Cimino did destroy United Artists, with Heaven’s Gate.

There are many, many more ... and to their company we now can add Gore Verbinski, the arrogant driving force behind A Cure for Wellness.

Savvier Hollywood types should have known better, given that Verbinski already demonstrated his tendency toward wretched excess, with his recent update of The Lone Ranger. But the fact that he also helmed the first three wildly successful Pirates of the Caribbean installments apparently blinded Those In Charge to all the red flags that should have been waving, from their first glimpse of this new project’s misbegotten script.

I’ve a theory that “high-class horror” is an oxymoron. Successfully scary movies, by their very nature, seem to demand modest (even microscopic) budgets and the exhilarating momentum that results from ground-level, guerrilla-style filmmaking; this has been true ever since producer Val Lewton chaperoned his B-unit shockers for RKO Pictures, back in the 1940s.

Commercial success for such endeavors often is a happy surprise, rather than a specific goal.

But the moment an A-list director, armed with a prestige budget, tries to make a “serious” fright flick ... the resulting flop almost is inevitable. See Exhibit A: Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining. Oh, it’s beautiful to look at, and Kubrick gets points for instilling a creepy atmosphere ... but scary? Hardly. Unintentionally funny, perhaps, but not terrifying; it’s too antiseptic and soulless to induce nightmares.

Which brings us to A Cure for Wellness, and its ponderous, insufferably calculated pretense of horror. Verbinski didn’t merely direct this bloated travesty; he also co-wrote the original script with Justin Haythe, who also collaborated on The Lone Ranger. (Ahem.) The result gets off to a reasonably promising start — to be fair — but quickly succumbs to laborious, overwrought theatrics and self-indulgently arty tableaus.