The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s three-hour version of Homer’s epic poem, world premiered in London on Monday night, and critics who saw the film there and at early screenings in the US have been sharing their takes on one of the year’s most hotly anticipated films.“Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion and a loss of innocence witnessed by the dead,” wrote the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, ahead of the reviews embargo lifting next Wednesday and next Friday’s worldwide release.IndieWire editor-at-large Anne Thompson called the film the best picture contender to beat, and added that Matt Damon “could win best actor”. “My high expectations were met,” she added, calling the film “stunningly mounted”.Multiple pundits described the film as “flawless” and “breathtaking”, with others singling out Robert Pattinson’s villainous Antinous for particular praise.Erik Davis called the film “an absolute triumph and a crowning cinematic achievement from one of the great film-makers of our time. It feels like everything Nolan has been working toward with Imax has culminated here.” The film was shot entirely using large-format Imax film cameras, although it will also be screened in non-Imax cinemas.“The production design is incredible,” continued Davis, “the action is breathtaking, and the scale is unlike anything he’s done before. What really surprised me is how much he embraces horror. Some of the film’s biggest moments are genuinely unsettling, adding a whole new dimension to his film-making while never losing sight of the humanity at the story’s core.”Davis added: “Anne Hathaway is incredible, Matt Damon is excellent, and Tom Holland continues to prove he can do just about anything. But Robert Pattinson absolutely stole the show for me. He’s so conniving, manipulative and endlessly entertaining to watch. Pattinson leans all the way into the character’s villainy, and it results in one of my favorite performances of his.”Meanwhile Matt Neglia praised the set-pieces, calling the film “a colossal achievement of scale, even by Nolan’s standards”, while IndieWire’s David Ehrlich described it as “surprisingly natural” as well as “less despairing” than Nolan’s most recent film, Oppenheimer, which swept the 2023 Oscars and took almost $1bn at the box office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, Ehrlich also commented that the film was “too clunky to be S-tier Nolan, but the last act rewards the journey”.The classical historian Tom Holland, meanwhile – no relation to one of the film’s stars – defended the movie on X, saying: “I’ve now watched it twice, and it is by some way the best cinematic adaptation of a Greek myth I have ever seen. It honours Homer while simultaneously making something new of him.”With an estimated budget of $250m and a considerable worldwide tour to fund, the film will need to take at least $500m to break even. Yet signals are strong that the appetite for cinema-going is currently in the resurgence, thanks to the strong performance of blockbusters such as Toy Story 5 as well as unexpected low-budget hits including Backrooms and Obsession.