‘The Odyssey’ Gets First Rave Reaction From Christoper Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ Co-Writer and Brother Jonathan: ‘An Incredible Achievement’

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” officially has its first rave reaction, courtesy of the director’s brother Jonathan Nolan. The “Westworld” co-creator and “Fallout” executive producer told CinemaBlend that his older brother’s upcoming epic is “spectacular” and “tremendous.”

“I’m not working on ‘The Odyssey.’ I have seen ‘The Odyssey.’ It’s tremendous. It’s an incredible achievement,” Jonathan Nolan said. “I was fascinated by the ‘Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’ when I was younger, and I had some fun conversations with Chris about where he’s taking it. It’s a spectacular film… I’m not sure I’m supposed to say that but, yes, it’s tremendous.”

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Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s career are tied together as Christopher’s breakout 2000 feature “Memento” was based on Jonathan’s short story. The brothers would go on to co-write “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Interstellar” together. Jonathan also worked on the script for “Batman Begins” but went uncredited.

Matt Damon reunites with Nolan after “Interstellar” and “Oppenheimer” to headline “The Odyssey” in the lead role of Odysseus. Tom Holland plays his son, Telemachus. The sprawling ensemble also includes Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Jon Bernthal.

In an interview on the “New Heights” podcast last month, Damon marveled over how Nolan achieved the feat of making “The Odyssey” the first Hollywood feature film to be entirely shot with Imax cameras.

“Imax cameras are really loud. It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you. So there’s never been these dialogue [scenes in Imax],” Damon said. “We couldn’t have this conversation with a normal Imax camera because you wouldn’t be able to hear us. They built this giant thing around the Imax for those dialogue scenes and a system of mirrors so your eye line would be close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor. The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do [that], because he wanted to do 100 percent Imax and he did it!”

Nolan told Empire magazine last year that he was interested in adapting Homer’s Greek epic for the big screen as his next movie after Oscar winner “Oppenheimer” because it would give him the chance to do something that’s just not being done in contemporary Hollywood.

“As a filmmaker, you’re looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven’t been done before,” Nolan told the publication about why he chose to turn Homer’s “Odyssey” into a movie. “And what I saw is that all of this great mythological cinematic work that I had grown up with – Ray Harryhausen movies and other things – I’d never seen that done with the sort of weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood, IMAX production could do.”

“The Odyssey” opens in theaters July 17 from Universal.