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The Odyssey (2026)

Summary

After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.

Director Christopher Nolan

Writer Christopher Nolan

Cast

• Matt Damon as Odysseus
• Tom Holland as Telemachus
• Anne Hathaway
• Zendaya
• Lupita Nyong'o
• Robert Pattinson
• Charlize Theron
• Benny Safdie
• Jon Bernthal
• John Leguizamo
• Elliot Page
• Himesh Patel
• Samantha Morton

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 88

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

I was rewatching Oppenheimer recently and I gotta say that I really liked what they did with Rami Malek and his character.

Before seeing the film, i was very confused on how Rami Malek had such high billing in the cast list considering that his character wasn’t in any of the marketing or trailers. When he appeared twice throughout the film as this scientist that had no lines, i was shocked that they had practically casted him in a cameo role. But then he has that big scene at the press conference around 30 minutes before the film ends and it's a huge “Oh shit” moment.

I recently rewatched John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars, and now I can’t unsee it: the movie is basically a classic Resident Evil campaign set on Mars.
Not just because it has monsters, guns and an isolated location. Its entire structure feels like survival horror:
- A police team is sent to investigate a mysterious incident.
-They arrive at an isolated settlement that has suddenly gone silent.
-Something terrible happened shortly before their arrival.
-The group splits up almost immediately.
-Empty buildings are explored while the characters try to understand what happened.
-The disaster is reconstructed through testimonies, reports, recordings and flashbacks.
- Most of the story is discovered through the aftermath of the outbreak rather than by witnessing its beginning directly.
- Police officers are forced to cooperate with dangerous prisoners.
- The characters search abandoned buildings for weapons, ammunition, tools and useful materials.
Resources are limited enough that every confrontation matters.
- They need to find specific objects or materials in order to make other things work.
- The police station becomes a temporary safe room.
- The same locations are revisited after the situation changes: actual survival-horror backtracking.
- Previously safe areas become hostile.
- Doors, streets and buildings change function as the threat spreads.
- The protagonist becomes infected, like Jill in Resident Evil 3.
- The infection also allows her to understand the nature of the enemy.
- The first possessed enemy is revealed in almost the same slow, uncanny way as the first zombie in the original Resident Evil.
- The threat moves from one host to another like a biological outbreak.
- Secondary characters are eliminated one by one.
- The survivors gradually obtain heavier weapons.
- There are regular enemies, stronger miniboss-like enemies and a clearly recognizable main antagonist.
- Big Daddy Mars behaves like a classic stalker boss: he keeps returning, survives confrontations and gives the entire threat a single face.
- The characters barricade themselves inside a building and prepare for a siege.
- Explosives are assembled and used almost like the solution to an environmental puzzle.
- The heroes escape by train.
- The apparent escape is followed by the realization that the threat is not over.
- The surviving protagonist recounts the entire incident to skeptical authorities.
- The ending feels like the beginning of a second scenario or New Game Plus.
Even the mining settlement feels designed like a Resident Evil map: police station, prison cells, empty streets, industrial buildings, locked passages, ambush points and a train connecting the area.
It even has the correct Resident Evil tone: completely sincere horror mixed with absurd names, exaggerated villains, action-movie dialogue, grotesque monsters and characters behaving as though all of this is somehow part of a normal working day.
I’m not saying Carpenter intentionally copied Resident Evil. They probably share older influences: siege westerns, haunted-house stories, The Thing, Aliens and zombie cinema. But the overlap is so extensive that Ghosts of Mars feels more faithful to the structure of the games than most official Resident Evil movies.
My conclusion:
The best Resident Evil adaptation is a John Carpenter western set on Mars.
What other similarities did I miss?

Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north of the Philippines, works at a posh country club outside Manila. Amid stifling heat and pervasive drought, she lines up golf balls for powerful men to drive into the carefully manicured verdant horizon. Between shifts, she wanders the immaculate grounds, sampling its luxuries and exploring its liminal spaces. The club’s members, including an industrialist and his expatriate niece, the president and his pampered wife, and a slew of Chinese tourists, engage in a complex dance with the doting and subservient staff. But something is rotting beneath the pristine fairways of the elite resort, as Isabel discovers when she tries to return a mislaid golf club to its patriarchal director, Dr. Palanca. The deeper she journeys into its most exclusive corners, the closer she gets to the violent truths of the club, her native Philippines, and her own past. Executive produced by Jia Zhangke, this Sundance award-winning debut announces writer-director Rafael Manuel as a major new voice in international cinema.

I know that the film stock from The New Hollywood era approximately from 1967 to about 1983 had this dark/grey/reddish tinge/hue to it but that couldn't be the only reason.

Was it a choice? Some sort of a rebellion against the old classic Hollywood style?

I just want to understand. I think the seventies decade was the best decade when it comes creativity and talent but sometimes I want something more vibrant although I think the old technicolor and old eastmancolor styles have been done to death.

Honestly, it just got me. It was seemingly so random but so well put together and unique, and funny, weird, but with a really great message about the fashion industry. I’m not even a fashion nut but it ran rings around The Devil Wears Prada 2 (not that there’s a comparison). I am sad it was released when it was because apparently that means no Oscar nominations, and honestly I was expecting it to be next year’s The Substance. It’s a 5 star film for me and I’m not even sure why. It reminds me of ParaNorman with its dry yet zany sense of humour.

Am I alone in thinking this? I am so incredibly snobby when it comes to films, I am extremely surprised how well-made this was given it looks like an extended episode of Yo Gabba Gabba!

Side note, I took a gummy half an hour before I started this movie. Given it takes a while to go full-out bonkers, I truly did wonder throughout if what I was seeing was as crazy as it seemed, or if it was just me. I’d highly recommend watching it high if you can/if you enjoy that sort of thing. Bonkers experience. Core memory now.

I just rewatched Spider-Man (2002) and the scenes where Willam Dafoe is playing the deranged Norman Osbourne just look likes he’s really really over acting and having a lot of fun with it. Chewing the scenery as they say.

Can anyone think of any other great examples of movies with actors doing the same?

As an ongoing project, /r/movies will be posting Throwback Discussion threads weekly for the movies that came out this same weekend 25 years ago. As a reminder, Official Discussion threads are for discussing the movie and not for meta sub discussion.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

Summary

In the year 2065, a scientist races to save Earth from mysterious alien phantoms by searching for eight spirit signatures that may hold the key to humanity's survival.

Director Hironobu Sakaguchi Motonori Sakakibara

Writer Al Reinert Jeff Vintar

Cast

• Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Aki Ross (voice)
• Alec Baldwin as Captain Gray Edwards (voice)
• Ving Rhames as Ryan Whittaker (voice)
• Steve Buscemi as Neil Fleming (voice)
• Donald Sutherland as Dr. Cid (voice)
• James Woods as General Hein (voice)
• Peri Gilpin as Jane Proudfoot (voice)

Rotten Tomatoes: 44%

Metacritic: 49

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer