top of page
Search

CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 7-17-26

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!]


My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review two new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, July 17th, 2026.


The Odyssey is exactly the kind of movie that reminds me why I have what is, for a lot of people, a very unpopular opinion: I am simply not a Christopher Nolan fan. I know that's practically cinematic heresy these days.


Nolan has become one of those filmmakers who has somehow reached a point where every new release is treated like a cultural event before anyone has even seen it. He's hailed as a genius, one of the greatest directors of all time, and every new film arrives wrapped in prestige and expectation.


I've never bought into that. I think he's enormously overrated. I think he's made a couple of truly terrific movies, a small handful of good ones, and quite a few that mistake complexity for depth and cinematic gimmickry for storytelling.


The Odyssey doesn't change my mind. In fact, it reinforces just about every criticism I've ever had of Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker.


On paper, this sounds like an incredible project. Homer's Odyssey is one of the foundational stories of Western literature, an epic adventure filled with monsters, gods, impossible journeys, and timeless themes about war, family, pride, and redemption.


Nolan had a reported budget of over $250 million, complete creative freedom from Universal, an extraordinary cast led by Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Charlize Theron, Zendaya and dozens of other talented performers, and he shot the entire thing on IMAX film.


That's a remarkable technical achievement, and as I've said many times before, I genuinely admire Christopher Nolan's dedication to preserving film, championing theatrical exhibition, and encouraging audiences to experience movies on the biggest screens possible.


I love that he still shoots on celluloid. I love that he fights for large-format presentation. I just wish he spent as much energy on writing compelling, emotionally involving stories as he does on promoting the technology used to photograph them.


The story, of course, follows Odysseus, King of Ithaca, struggling to return home after the Trojan War while encountering the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, Calypso, Poseidon, Scylla, Charybdis, and every famous stop along Homer's legendary journey.


Meanwhile, back home, Penelope fends off increasingly aggressive suitors who assume her husband is dead, while their son Telemachus begins searching for answers about his missing father.


Instead of telling that story in a straightforward way, Nolan immediately fractures it into multiple timelines, constantly jumping backward and forward, weaving together Odysseus's voyage, Telemachus's search, and the political chaos back in Ithaca.


And there's the first problem.


Christopher Nolan once again can't resist doing what Christopher Nolan always does. He chops up a perfectly good linear story (and in this case, the somewhat non-linear original Homer story) into puzzle pieces, convinced that scrambling chronology somehow makes the material more profound. Sometimes that approach works.


It worked beautifully in Memento because the entire concept depended on fractured memory. It fit naturally inside Inception because dreams operate without linear logic. Even Interstellar benefited from its manipulation of time because the science-fiction concepts supported it.


But The Odyssey doesn't need any of that. Homer already wrote one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. Nolan seems incapable of simply trusting it.


Instead, he disguises what is actually a fairly straightforward story behind his familiar cinematic bag of tricks: constant time jumps, overlapping narratives, thunderous music cues, overwhelming sound design, and editing that often feels more interested in showing off than telling a story.


For me, those devices don't create emotional complexity. They distract from the fact that Nolan rarely lets scenes breathe long enough for the audience to genuinely connect with the characters.


That emotional distance has always been my biggest issue with Nolan, and it's especially damaging here because The Odyssey should be deeply emotional. This is a story about a man who desperately wants to return to his family after twenty years of war and suffering. It should be heartbreaking. Instead, it becomes a checklist.


Here's the Trojan Horse.

Here's the Cyclops.

Here's Circe.

Here's the Sirens.

Here's Calypso.

Here's the showdown with the suitors.


The movie plays like one giant K-Tel Greatest Hits collection of Greek mythology. Every famous moment is here, but almost none of them resonate.


The performances don't help much either. Matt Damon commits physically to the role, and you can tell how much preparation went into becoming Odysseus. He looks terrific, and there's a real physical exhaustion that he carries throughout the film.


Anne Hathaway gives one of the better performances as Penelope, bringing dignity and intelligence to a character Nolan once again underwrites.


Samantha Morton is wonderfully eerie as Circe, whose transformation of men into pigs is one of the film's most effective sequences, thanks to some genuinely creepy practical makeup effects.


Elliot Page also has one memorable appearance leading an unsettling army of undead soldiers that briefly pushes the movie into genuine horror territory, and that scene works surprisingly well.


Unfortunately, much of the rest of the cast is squandered. The extremely limited Tom Holland is annoyingly stiff and robotic as Telemachus. Robert Pattinson gives a generic villain performance that never becomes interesting. Zendaya, playing Athena, has almost nothing meaningful to do. Lupita Nyong'o is wasted in two separate roles.


Benny Safdie barely registers. Jon Bernthal appears briefly to do his usual Jon Bernthal schtick. John Leguizamo gives one of the weakest performances in the movie. Charlize Theron's scenes as Calypso should carry enormous emotional weight, but they feel strangely lifeless, largely because Nolan never develops any believable chemistry between her and Damon.


Even Travis Scott's appearance as a bard (an idea Nolan reportedly included to connect ancient oral storytelling with modern rap) comes across as a gimmick that never finds its place within the movie's inconsistent tone.


That's really the biggest issue. The tone is all over the place.


One minute Nolan seems to be making a deadly serious historical epic like Troy. The next minute he's embracing the kind of broad fantasy adventure associated with Ray Harryhausen movies like Jason and the Argonauts or Clash of the Titans.


Then suddenly characters are dropping modern slang, saying "Mom" and "Dad," throwing around contemporary dialogue, even using profanity that completely shatters whatever historical atmosphere the movie had been trying to establish. It's as though a group of modern Californians wandered into Greek mythology.


The tonal whiplash becomes exhausting.


Even the enormous action sequences, impressive as they are technically, rarely generate much excitement. Nolan deserves credit for building gigantic practical sets, using thousands of extras, constructing enormous ships, photographing everything on IMAX film, and relying on practical effects whenever possible.


Those accomplishments are real, and they're admirable. But technical achievement alone doesn't automatically produce great filmmaking. The Cyclops sequence, despite the remarkable full-scale puppet work performed by Bill Irwin, feels surprisingly routine and very dull. Despite the changes in concept, the Trojan Horse sequence never finds the epic sweep it's reaching for.


The final battle inside Penelope's palace somehow feels oddly confined, staged in what often resembles a dimly lit wooden cafeteria rather than the climax of one of literature's greatest adventures.


Ironically, the strongest material comes when Nolan briefly embraces horror. Circe's grotesque transformation scenes are genuinely unsettling, and the sequence involving the undead warriors has an eerie atmosphere that reminded me how effective Nolan can be when he stops trying to overwhelm the audience with spectacle and simply builds suspense.


At nearly three hours, though, The Odyssey becomes an endurance test. You feel every minute of its running time. The pacing drags, the emotional stakes remain frustratingly distant, and Nolan's relentless stylistic flourishes eventually become numbing.


The overwhelming sound mix, the nonstop booming score, the fractured editing, the shifting tones, it all adds up to a film that's constantly demanding admiration instead of earning emotional investment.


Look, I understand that I'm in the minority here. Christopher Nolan has an enormous following, and this movie will undoubtedly become a massive box office success. It'll almost certainly receive multiple Academy Award nominations.


Many people will proclaim it another masterpiece. That's fine. Nolan has his audience, and they're going to love this movie regardless of what I think.


But for me, The Odyssey is an overlong, emotionally empty, tonally confused, derivative adaptation that mistakes scale for substance. I admire the craftsmanship. I admire the ambition. I admire Nolan's commitment to practical filmmaking and preserving the theatrical experience. I just don't admire the movie he made.


If I want to revisit Greek mythology on film, I'd honestly rather watch Troy (which isn't even that good), revisit Ray Harryhausen's wonderfully imaginative fantasy classics, or even revisit the gleeful absurdity of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which somehow gets more genuine entertainment out of the Trojan Horse gag than Nolan does with $250 million.


Christopher Nolan once again proves that having unlimited resources, unlimited talent behind the camera, and unlimited creative freedom doesn't necessarily result in a great movie.


Sometimes it simply results in a bigger, louder mess. For me, The Odyssey is exactly that. - ⭐️1/2


Horsegirls is the feature directing debut of Lauren Meyering, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and it’s one of those movies that wins you over despite some very obvious flaws. On paper, it sounds like the kind of indie dramedy that could easily collapse under the weight of its own good intentions.


It centers on an autistic young woman whose mother is battling cancer, throws in themes of independence, disability, family, mortality, and self-discovery, and then builds everything around the surprisingly real competitive world of hobbyhorsing.


That's a lot to juggle, and there are certainly moments when the movie reaches for easy emotional manipulation or leans into familiar underdog-movie clichés. Still, what ultimately saves Horsegirls is its sincerity, a terrific cast, and a level of authenticity that keeps it from becoming just another inspirational formula picture.


The story follows Margarita, a 22-year-old autistic woman whose world begins to shift after her mother, Sandy, receives a frightening cancer diagnosis. Realizing she may not always be there to care for her daughter, Sandy pushes Margarita toward independence by encouraging her to find a job and begin building a life of her own.


Margarita reluctantly starts working at a Halloween and toy store, where she slowly develops friendships and confidence while navigating a world that often feels overwhelming.


At the same time, she discovers the competitive hobbyhorsing community, an organized sport centered around elaborate routines performed with stick horses. What initially seems like an odd curiosity becomes a genuine source of confidence, friendship, purpose, and personal growth as Margarita trains for competition while learning to believe in herself.


One of the smartest decisions the filmmakers made was casting Lillian Carrier, who is autistic herself, in the lead role. That authenticity comes through in every scene. Carrier never feels like she's "performing" autism in the exaggerated, awards-friendly way we've unfortunately seen too often in movies. Instead, her performance feels lived-in, natural, and completely believable.


She's quietly compelling throughout the film, and she grounds even the script's more sentimental moments with emotional honesty. It's refreshing to see a film trust an actor who actually shares the lived experience of the character she's portraying, and the movie is immeasurably stronger because of it.


It's also nice to see Gretchen Mol in such a substantial role again. Back in the late '90s, she seemed poised to become one of Hollywood's next major stars, appearing in a string of memorable films before largely disappearing from the spotlight. Here she gives a warm, touching performance as Sandy, a mother desperately trying to prepare her daughter for a future she may not be around to witness.


Their relationship becomes the emotional center of the movie, and whenever Horsegirls focuses on that mother-daughter dynamic, it finds a genuine emotional truth that rises above the more familiar story beats.


Unfortunately, the screenplay occasionally undercuts that authenticity by leaning too heavily into formulas we've all seen before. The quirky outsider who finds an eccentric community and discovers self-worth through an unconventional activity is hardly new territory.


The illness storyline sometimes feels engineered to squeeze tears out of the audience rather than earning them honestly, and the hobbyhorsing competition itself follows many of the expected sports-movie rhythms.


There are also moments where the age dynamics within the hobbyhorsing group feel a little awkward, with Margarita often seeming noticeably older than many of the competitors around her. It never completely derails the film, but it does create an odd imbalance that the screenplay never really addresses.


Still, Meyering directs with genuine affection for these characters, and that sincerity carries the film a long way. Even when scenes become predictable or a little too sentimental, they never feel cynical.


The performances consistently elevate the material, particularly Carrier, whose quiet emotional presence keeps everything grounded. The supporting cast, including Tony Hale, Matthew Schwab, Jerod Haynes, and Iqbal Theba, all contribute nicely without ever stealing focus from Margarita's journey.


One unexpected pleasure was simply learning about hobbyhorsing itself. I honestly had no idea this was an actual competitive activity before seeing the film. Like so many niche communities, it may seem odd from the outside, but the movie does a nice job showing why it matters to the people involved.


It's not really about pretending to ride horses; it's about finding confidence, belonging, discipline, and a supportive community. That's something the film communicates surprisingly well, and it's probably its most charming accomplishment.


So yes, Horsegirls is predictable. It's occasionally corny, sometimes manipulative, and it doesn't entirely escape the conventions of the inspirational indie drama. But it's also heartfelt, well acted, thoughtfully directed, and anchored by a remarkable lead performance that gives the entire film credibility.


I found myself caring about these characters despite the screenplay's more obvious shortcuts, and I appreciated being introduced to a world I knew absolutely nothing about.


It doesn't reinvent the coming-of-age drama or the underdog sports movie, but thanks to its honesty, its performances, and its undeniable heart, Horsegirls earns a mild recommendation from me. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️



Thanks for reading, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!

bottom of page