Thursday, October 1, 2026
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Cherryville, NC (WNN) - Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is not simply a movie you watch—it is a cinematic experience that needs to be seen and heard in a premium theater.
I watched the film in a Dolby Cinema theater, and after experiencing it that way, Dolby is a must. The enormous screen, powerful sound system, and deep visual contrast pull the audience directly into Odysseus' dangerous journey home.
The sound is one of the film's most powerful elements and was composed by Ludwig Göransson, who also did the Tenet and Oppenheimer movie soundtracks. During the loudest sequences, my Apple Watch registered a peak of 105 decibels. That is an exceptionally high sound level, like at a rock concert. You do not merely hear the movie—the bass and impact move through your seat and your body.
For some viewers, the volume may be overwhelming. For this movie, however, the thunderous sound helps establish the scale and danger of the story. The crashing seas, battles, creatures, and moments of sudden violence feel massive. Nolan uses sound almost like another character, building tension before the audience even sees what is coming.
Matt Damon leads the film as Odysseus, the Greek king who attempts to return home after the Trojan War. The major cast also includes Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Zendaya as Athena, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, and Travis Scott has a brief cameo as Demodocus.
The R-rated movie, released by Universal Pictures, runs nearly three hours, but it rarely feels like a conventional three-hour film. It moves through a series of dangerous encounters while maintaining the larger emotional story of a man struggling to return to his family and reclaim the life he left behind.
Visually, The Odyssey is spectacular. Billed as the first feature filmed entirely with IMAX cameras on 65mm negative film and 70mm on release, it presents enormous landscapes, detailed close-ups, and action sequences designed for the largest screens available. An IMAX film can have the visual detail of 18K resolution. Over 2 million feet of film were used to film the movie.
Although much of the attention has been placed on IMAX, the Dolby presentation delivers an outstanding combination of picture quality, clarity, and room-filling sound. Based on my experience, Dolby is not merely an upgrade for this movie—it is an important part of the experience.
The Odyssey Movie Poster - Dolby Cinema (2026)
Universal Pictures
Audiences apparently agreed that The Odyssey was a movie worth seeing on the big screen.
The film earned an estimated $264.1 million worldwide during its opening weekend, including $124.5 million in the United States and Canada and $139.6 million internationally. It topped the domestic and worldwide box offices.
Premium presentations played a major role in that success. According to Universal Pictures, half of moviegoers in the United States and Canada chose an enhanced theater format, with 23% attending an IMAX presentation.
That demand reinforces the idea that audiences did not view The Odyssey as an ordinary movie release. They wanted the largest screens and most powerful sound systems available.
Its opening weekend was stronger than the debut of Nolan's previous film, Oppenheimer, and represented his best opening since The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
I give The Odyssey a 4.5 Hoot as it's an ambitious, intense, and occasionally exhausting—but that appears to be the point. Odysseus' voyage is not supposed to feel easy. The audience is placed alongside him through storms, battles, temptation, fear, and loss. Also, knowledge of Greek mythology or the book will help your experience with this movie, but it is not required. I like the fact that very little CGI was used. Nolan uses the fewest CGI images and relies on puppetry, prosthetics, and physical props to deliver stunning visuals. No spoiler, but one subtle scene about a waiting dog was emotional, I thought. The only reason I didn't give it 5 Hoots is that the storyline is not original, nor is the movie, as it's been done before, but nowhere this good.
"This is a true big-screen epic and one of those increasingly rare movies that deserves to be experienced in a premium theater rather than watched for the first time at home." - Rusty Wise (WNN)
See it in a Dolby or IMAX theater.
The presentation is exceptionally loud—reaching a peak of 105 decibels during my showing—but the overwhelming sound and visual scale are major parts of what make the movie memorable. Seeing Odyssey at a regular movie theater or at home will not do it justice.
With a $264.1 million worldwide opening, audiences have already demonstrated they are willing to leave home and pay for a premium theatrical experience when Hollywood offers a movie of this scale.
