Ben Shapiro spends surprisingly little time disputing the quality of Christopher Nolan's adaptation. His verdict is overwhelmingly positive: the film is visually extraordinary, emotionally effective by the end, filled with memorable action, and anchored by a thematic interpretation of Odysseus that he finds compelling even when it departs from the ancient poem. The more interesting part of the review is how he handles controversies surrounding the cast. Rather than treating every deviation from historical or textual expectations as equally objectionable, Shapiro argues that most of the complaints circulating before release do not meaningfully damage the film. That willingness to reject criticisms coming from his own political side gives the review more nuance than its sharpest moments initially suggest.

Shapiro's strongest analysis concerns Nolan's interpretation of Odysseus. As he describes it, this version of the character is burdened by guilt over the Trojan War, the deaths of his men, and his own participation in violating a moral order represented by what the film calls Zeus's law. Shapiro interprets that principle as requiring people to treat strangers properly because any stranger could potentially be a god in disguise, and he sees the destruction of Troy as the pivotal violation that reverberates through the rest of Odysseus's journey. His discussion of Circe turning greedy men into pigs, Odysseus confronting human nature, and the final decision to kill the suitors before relinquishing power gives viewers a coherent explanation for why he believes Nolan has transformed an episodic journey home into a story about guilt, moral order, consequence, and ultimately exile.

That thematic enthusiasm is accompanied by substantial praise for the filmmaking. Shapiro highlights the fall of Troy, Trojan horse sequence, Cyclops encounter, giants, and Circe material as particularly memorable, repeatedly describing Nolan as an exceptional visual director. Matt Damon receives strong praise for disappearing into Odysseus, while Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Corey Hawkins, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, and Zendaya are among the performances he responds to positively. He is less enthusiastic about Ludwig Göransson's score, which he considers good rather than among the composer's best, and criticizes Nolan's familiar tendency to allow music and sound to overwhelm dialogue. His example of struggling to hear part of Calypso's explanation identifies a practical presentation problem rather than simply invoking Nolan's reputation for difficult sound mixes.

The casting discussion is most effective when Shapiro evaluates objections according to whether they interfere with the story rather than whether they satisfy a predetermined political position. Travis Scott's brief appearance as a bard does not bother him, and he rejects the idea that racial authenticity can be reduced to casting white actors when the performers generally are not Greek anyway. He similarly accepts Lupita Nyong'o's casting because he says the film reframes Helen as a political pretext for controlling trade routes rather than making her beauty the true cause of the Trojan War. Zendaya as Athena receives an even stronger defense because Shapiro argues that Nolan builds her appearance into Odysseus's psychology, connecting Athena with a Trojan woman whose death he witnesses during the sack of the city. Whether viewers share those interpretations, Shapiro at least explains why the casting works within the version of the story the film is telling.

His objection to modern language is simpler and more persuasive on cinematic terms. Hearing characters use words such as “dad,” “daddy,” and “mom” pulls him out of the ancient setting, and he argues that alternatives such as “father” and “mother” could have preserved the same meaning without creating the distraction. That criticism fits the standard he repeatedly establishes: adaptation requires departures from ancient literature, but choices become problems when they unnecessarily break immersion. The discussion would be stronger if Shapiro applied that principle consistently and explored more of the screenplay's structural liberties, especially since he acknowledges that the first hour feels slow and episodic before the film's thematic direction becomes clear.

The Elliott Page section is where the review's focus shifts most sharply from film criticism into Shapiro's broader views about gender identity. He explains the narrative role of Sinon, questions the visual continuity between the younger and older versions of the character, and argues that Page's performance does not work for him in scenes involving war, death, and heroism. Those are reviewable cinematic objections. However, he repeatedly frames the criticism through assertions about Page's sex, body, voice, surgeries, and mental state, turning what could have been a focused discussion of casting, performance, and character continuity into a political argument about the performer. He also speculates about possible reasons Nolan made the casting decision before acknowledging that he does not know the reason. That material is considerably less grounded than his analysis of how the role actually functions in the film.

The conclusion nevertheless returns to a broader point that makes the review more interesting than a straightforward culture-war reaction. Shapiro explicitly warns conservatives against deciding that an entire work is bad because they dislike one casting choice or perceive objectionable politics within it. He expects the film to succeed because audiences can tolerate individual creative decisions they dislike when the larger work is entertaining, visually impressive, and thematically substantial. He even argues that the moral framework he sees in Nolan's adaptation overlaps with conservative ideas about natural order, human weakness, and the consequences of violating enduring rules. Combined with his 8.5-to-9 range and placement of the film near the top of Nolan's second tier, the final assessment is clear: his objections are genuine, but they are nowhere near substantial enough to outweigh what he regards as an exceptional filmmaking achievement.

Pros

• Shapiro provides a detailed interpretation of Odysseus's guilt, Zeus's law, the destruction of Troy, human nature, and exile rather than limiting the review to spectacle or casting controversies.
• Specific praise for the Trojan horse, Cyclops, giants, Circe, cinematography, and performances explains why he considers the film a major cinematic achievement.
• Criticism of Nolan's sound mixing and the slower, episodic first hour introduces meaningful reservations alongside the overwhelmingly positive verdict.
• He evaluates several controversial casting choices individually and rejects objections to Travis Scott, Lupita Nyong'o, and Zendaya when he believes the film provides sufficient narrative justification.
• The conclusion pushes against judging an entire film through a single political or casting disagreement, giving the review a more measured overall position than some of its rhetoric suggests.

Cons

• The Elliott Page discussion becomes dominated by Shapiro's views about gender identity, including unnecessary comments about Page's body, medical history, and mental state that contribute little to evaluating the performance.
• Speculation about why Nolan cast Page is unsupported, particularly after Shapiro acknowledges that he does not know the filmmaker's reasoning.
• Shapiro repeatedly labels the film's moral framework conservative, but that political interpretation receives more confidence than the review's own acknowledgment that ancient material and Nolan's adaptation allow for interpretation.
• The review identifies the first hour as slow and episodic but spends relatively little time examining whether that structure creates broader pacing or storytelling problems.
• The PDS Debt sponsorship interrupts the casting analysis midway through the review, breaking momentum just before its most contentious section.

Shapiro makes a persuasive case that Nolan's adaptation succeeds through visual scale, strong performances, memorable set pieces, and a coherent interpretation of Odysseus as a man confronting guilt and the consequences of violating moral order, while also showing an unusual willingness to dismiss several culture-war objections he finds irrelevant to the finished film. His critique becomes much weaker when the Elliott Page casting turns into personal and political commentary rather than focused performance analysis, but the larger review remains specific, enthusiastic, and ultimately more interested in judging the movie as a complete work than condemning it for individual choices he dislikes.