GODS AND MONSTERS

It’s a tale as old as time. Or three-thousand years. Take your pick.

Homer’s “Odyssey” is a 24-book epic poem that has intrigued writers and filmmakers through the ages.

And now we have what might well be the definitive cinematic treatment, courtesy of award-winning director Christopher Nolan.

His last film, “Oppenheimer,” won seven Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture. And back then it might have been folly to suggest his next project would be Oppenheimer’s equal in both scope and achievement.

But The Odyssey, on its day of release, made more money than any other Nolan picture. And as for box office, it could well outperform any recent blockbuster you care to mention.

But we’re here to talk about art, after all.

Director Nolan, from the age of 16, had always wanted to shoot a movie entirely in the IMAX format. He experimented with it in a few scenes in “The Dark Knight,” the Batman adventure with Heath Ledger as The Joker.

But the technology behind IMAX is a tricky enterprise: the cameras are notoriously noisy, so they’re best used in scenes that mask their operation with aggressive sound.

In the case of Odyssey, Nolan planned to use IMAX for the entire production, even in quiet scenes focusing on dialogue. So he asked the IMAX company to design elaborate sound-dampening camera containers.

And that wasn’t the only constraint. The video cartridges that produce the images inside the camera have to be changed every three minutes. So, it was start-stop, start-stop throughout months of movie-making.

According to reports on set, the actors initially thought Nolan was yelling “CUT!” so often because he was dissatisfied with their work. It unnerved them, until their director explained the necessity to bow to the technology.

Now, about the actors. Matt Damon heads an impressive cast as Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Anne Hathaway plays his long-suffering wife Penelope. Spider-man veteran Tom Holland is their son Telemachus. Lupita Nyong’o is Helen of Troy.

But perhaps most intriguing of all is the casting of John Leguizamo as a blind acolyte of Odysseus and British actress Samantha Morton as the witch Cerce. Both are scene-stealers.

The basic story has Odysseus spending ten years fighting in the siege of Troy and then another ten in trying to make his way back to Ithaca, to Penelope and Telemachus.

The key signature of the fall of Troy involves the now-famous Trojan Horse. Odysseus and his men build it on a nearby beach and then his young soldier Sinon offers it as a gift to the Trojan army.

Unlike in other popular versions of this tale of treachery, Nolan chooses to set the horse upright in the sand, and not on a rolling platform. So the Trojans have to enlist hundreds of able-bodied men to lay it on its side and drag it into the city.

The dozens of Greeks hidden inside manage to maintain their secrecy until the moment when they open a hatch and lay waste to Troy. Odysseus and his men, after an exhausting battle, are conquering heroes.

And then it’s time to return home.

But in that effort, Odysseus manages to anger the god Poseidon, who in turn scuttles the Greeks’ modest fleet.

The group is further down-sized as they encounter a Cyclops bent on revenge, a platoon of metal-clad behemoths, the witch Cerce whose dinner invitation you must never accept, and the dangerous Sirens who sing a song that can drive men insane.

Meanwhile, Penelope is back at the castle, trying to fend off dozens of suitors as she wavers between being loyal to her missing husband and weakening to the idea that she must marry as his widow. Hathaway has a steely and cunning presence here.

So, exactly where is Odysseus in all this?

What’s holding up the homecoming?

Telemachus takes a few men and goes in search of a father he’s convinced is still alive. While actor Robert Pattinson (“The Batman”) plays a cunning suitor who schemes to have the son killed and take control of Odysseus’ empire.

“The Odyssey” is nothing short of brilliant. It’s a rich stew of treachery, mayhem, loyalty, bitterness, longing and epic sweep. It’s no exaggeration to say Christopher Nolan is the only living director who could have pulled this off and we must thank the movie gods for that.