Sail we must, on Homer’s “wine dark sea” from Ithaca to Asia Minor and many points in between for the greatest story of them all, the tale of “a face, a fleet…of a war with Troy, of a man and a ‘trick’” and “Zeus’s Law, defied at mankind’s peril.

For his latest feat, Christopher Nolan takes us on the epic quest that is the cornerstone of Western literature and Western civilization, Homer’s saga of Odysseus, “hero of the Trojan War,” a trickster ready to wield his brain and his brawn in a titanic struggle not just to win that war, but the many tests that stand between himself and “home.”

And in Nolan’s telling, what makes “The Odyssey” timeless is the remorse of civilization’s unraveling, of the violence and pitiless greed that brings great epochs and empires to an end. Odysseus, played with equal parts cunning and gravitas by Matt Damon, spends his years “coming home” from The Trojan War filled with regret at what he’s seen, what he’s done and what’ he’s caused to come to pass.

His men and even he see himself as “punished” by the gods for his acts, playing god himself as he is forced to choose who lives and who dies. He pay for his hubris with more tests, more violence and more second guessing than we’ve ever seen in in a film or mini-series about him, the original “classic” hero of Western literature.

Nolan’s ancient epic is more historical and slightly grander than Wolfgang Peterson’s mythic star vehicle “Troy,” more touching than the riveting and brutally heroic “300,” and more tactile than either. We’re seeing real seas, realistic reconstructions of ancient armor, cities, galleys of war and a real dog — Argus — waiting for his master to return from decades of fighting and traveling.

Note to “Supergirl” and “Superboy” filmmakers and anybody else thinking “Let’s just digitally animate the damned dog.” Nobody cries when a digital dog dies.

If I’m honest, Nolan’s version of an oft-told tale had me from the moment I saw “the horse,” the “trick” of the tale-teller’s account of “clever” Odysseus. Troy really existed, and if there really was a “Trojan Horse,” I’ll bet it looked a lot like this — half-buried in the surf, a “Planet of the Apes” post-apocalyptic monument and tribute to the gods that had to be hauled, sans wheels, from the sand to the city whose blasphemous undoing it held hidden in its belly.

Nolan’s narrative opens with that “trick,” and tells the tale from three temporal perspectives — the war, as remembered, events back home in the Ithaca with the queen (Anne Hathaway) and son (Tom Holland) that King Odysseus left behind to fight, and the epic quest to return from that war as recalled by Odysseus in the company of his most alluring captor, Calypso (Charlize Theron).

The central conflict isn’t the war, or the murderously ruthless “suitors” for Queen Penelope, foremost among them the handsome and venomous Antinous (Robert Pattinson). It is between Odysseus and his superstitious men as he struggles with hardened warriors (Himesh Patel plays his stoic but questioning second in command) convinced their commanding officer has offended and re-offended the gods, especially Troy’s patron, Poseidon.

“You can’t live by omens and sacrifices,” Odysseus scoffs. But in this “time of apparent magic,” even our Ur-hero is given pause by Cyclops, the Sirens, the enchantress Circe (Samantha Morton) and the gigantic armored man-eaters that confront them, the Laestrygonians.

And even Odysseus has his Mount Olympus spirit guide. Zendaya plays the goddess Athena, who warns him “Your cleverness will get you into trouble.”

As indeed it does.

Damon’s “brand” as an actor has long been the intelligence he conveys in all but the silliest roles. That’s put to great use here as we see him plotting and planning this escape or that ambush. “The gods help those who help themselves,” he preaches. But his Odysseus also lets us see him second-guessing himself, a wearying and ageing man weighed down by the heartbreaking burdens of leadership.

Hathaway, in the role of the dutiful wife weaving and unraveling her tapestry while bullying suitors impose themselves on her household, shows us her own burdens. She said “Promise me you’ll come back.” And all she’s left with, decades later, is rising anger at the plight her long-absent and presumed-dead husband has placed her in. She is queen, but their overmatched son (Tom Holland) is too unsophisticated and physically weak to take the throne in the presence of entitled, murderous brutes.

Jon Bernthal brings a rough bluntness to the gruff Menelaus of Sparta, a hardnosed ruler dragged into war when Helen (Lupita Nyong’o) ran away from his brother Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) to Troy.

And John Leguizamo nimbly plays the loyal blind swineherd who tries to help Penelope and son Telemachus (Holland) cling to power as long as possible against long odds that his master, Odysseus, might return. Horror icon Mia Goth plays Penelope’s treacherous handmaiden.

Nolan’s “all-star cast” makes something of a statement in terms or the film’s intentions and modern messaging. The first character we see is played by the transgender actor Page, with a Black Helen of Troy and Black and Asian characters giving this ancient world the cosmopolitan flavor it most certainly had.

A running theme through all this is the breakdown of an old order, “Zeus’s Law” about piety, square dealing and how to treat strangers and guests and the rest of the human race, Trojans included. Nolan is talking about the “Dark Ages” to come, and the “Dark Ages” which have revisited us whenever the people lose their way and the violent and rapacious are empowered over us, often at our own doing.

Take a gander at insensate monster Cyclops and who he seems to resemble. Imagine him in a diaper if you have trouble making the connection.

This “Odyssey” is almost exactly what we’d expect from Nolan, a very good film not on a par with the unnerving novelty of “Inception,” lacking the poetry and stunning suspense of “Dunkirk” — just an epic yarn given epic treatment/

This is a filmmaker who has something to say to modern audiences, and a pretty good idea of how to say it within the context of a 3000 year old tale of “a face” that “launched” a “fleet” of “a thousand ships,” of “clever” Odysseus” and the gods and all-too-human men who bedeviled him every step of his guilt-ridden and bloody journey “home.”

Rating: R, graphic violence, nudity, profanity

Cast: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page, John Leguizamo, Samantha Morton, James Remar, Ryan Hurst, Mia Goth, Jon Bernthal and Charlize Theron

Credits: Scripted and directed by Christopher Nolan, based on “The Odyssey” by Homer. A Universal release.

Running time: 2:52

Heat Advisory

from THU 12:00 PM EDT until THU 8:00 PM EDT, Eastern Montgomery County, Lower Bucks County, Philadelphia County, Delaware County, Eastern Chester County, Gloucester County, Northwestern Burlington County, Camden County, Mercer County, New Castle County

Exploiting racism has been a profitable strategy in Hollywood since the dawn of filmmaking: 111 years ago, D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” was incredibly popular and influential, while also being so racist that it was considered controversial even in its own day.

The industry saw immediately just how lucrative fear could be. More than a century later, there is always someone in the entertainment media willing to trade in racist tropes for money, as well as an audience ready to receive them.

Two new films, “Citizen Vigilante” and “Run, Fight, Hide: Infidels,” demonstrate that streaming platforms and social media no longer simply distribute controversial content but in fact thrive on content that provokes, polarizes and sustains attention, regardless of the social cost.

Both of these xenophobic and Islamophobic films are being pushed as “anti-woke” vehicles, deliberately engineered to bypass traditional critical reception and capitalize on a fractured media ecosystem. “Citizen Vigilante,” which features an American protagonist killing dark-skinned immigrants and Muslims in an unnamed European setting, was denied a rating certificate by the German government for inciting violence. Yet despite that determination, the film secured global reach through decentralized digital distribution and high-profile promotion from Elon Musk.

Similarly, “Run, Fight, Hide: Infidels” — a campus siege narrative evoking 1980s action film nostalgia that leans heavily into outdated, post-9/11 anxieties — relies on a built-in conservative media apparatus to guarantee financial returns. The film is produced by the conservative media figure Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, which he co-founded. It is a sequel to a 2020 film that was their film company’s premiere.

But while promoters of such films frame their work as a brave rebellion, the reality is much more sinister: rehashing 40-year-old tropes while invoking conspiracy theories of Muslims bringing sharia law to America, because outrage is cheap to produce and easy to monetize.

Stories matter. Stories shape how we see one another. They influence what we love, what we celebrate, whom we trust, whom we understand and whom we fear.

Since January, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has documented a sharp escalation in threats and attacks targeting Muslims and Islamic institutions across the United States, including vandalism, shootings, bomb threats, attempted assassinations and physical assaults. These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a broader climate in which dehumanizing representation increasingly manifests as real-world violence.

Entertainment and politics increasingly employ the same tactic as one another, recycling narratives of fear and “otherness” to mobilize audiences, voters and consumers. When political leaders encourage those narratives, as President Trump recently did by amplifying and commenting on a photo of young Muslim American students in hijab, they further normalize the same stereotypes that entertainment companies have learned to monetize.

Yet while the social costs continue to mount, the economic incentives remain firmly intact. “Citizen Vigilante” earned a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes despite receiving just a 6% critics’ score. More tellingly, it quickly climbed to the top of Amazon’s and Apple TV’s paid video-on-demand charts.

And this isn’t just a Muslim and immigrant issue — and it’s not only about who is portrayed on screens, but also who is not. Representation has been backsliding, and audiences are left with fewer opportunities to see the reality and humanity of diverse communities, making them more vulnerable to fear-based narratives.

According to a 2026 report from the nonprofit Define American, which tracks representation across television and film, Latinos account for only 23% of immigrant characters represented on screen, even though they make up more than 40% of the immigrant population in the United States. In 2020, 50% of immigrants on screen were Latino.

The industry’s defense is that whitewashed and xenophobic films reflect audience demand. But the recent research by Define American challenges this assumption. Data show that nuanced, multidimensional storytelling, in which immigrants and minority characters are woven into the fabric of everyday narratives rather than tokenized or villainized, actually leads to greater audience engagement and deeper systemic understanding.

Entertainment doesn’t simply reflect culture; it teaches us who belongs within it. Studios, distributors, streaming platforms and filmmakers all have a responsibility to reject narratives that portray immigrants as enemies and instead embrace stories that reflect the diversity and complexity of our world. At the same time — as with voters — the power ultimately rests with consumers. The choice to demand storytelling that challenges prejudice rather than profits from it belongs to all of us.

Sue Obeidi is the senior vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council Hollywood Bureau. Jose Antonio Vargas is the founder of Define American.