Christopher Nolan first and foremost makes cinematic spectacles and I was spectacled; what a ride.
Some thoughts:
My biggest problem with Nolan's Oddysey is the contrast between the intended depiction of Oddyseus as a complicated man torn by guilt and regret over his and his soldiers' actions in Troy ("we are the men from the sea," e.g. the OG traumatized war criminal) and the actual plot beats. Before Oddyseus and his wife happily travel westward to pay tribute to those same fallen soldiers, we are presented with a nice little power fantasy of Oddyseus slaying a hundred comically evil suitors. Before that, he ensures Cerce that his men are good, actually. (Maybe the intent here was to show self-doubt or the planting of seeds of doubt, but if that's the case, it wasn't very successful.) Little is done during Oddyseus' journey to present us with the idea that he's gradually come to understand the impact of his own actions, let alone that of his men, aside from Zendaya's occasional glance of disappointment.
Speaking of Cerce, women remain Nolan's Achilles heel, underdeveloped and underutilized. Starting with Anne Hathaway's Penelope (although her "I have 20 years of experience" dialogue wasn't very convincing but that might just be the hammy script), but particularly Lupita Nyong'o's dual characters and Charlize Theron's Calypso were just begging for more exploration, even within the confines of an adaptation.
On the flip side, some of the performances were just not there for me, Tom Holland, or at least Elliot Page and Robert Pattinson all have their qualities as actors but were rather off putting here.
Part of the problem is also that there is just so much ground to cover, and the film does seem to move from plot beat to plot beat, trying to cover as much ground as possible within the confines of a stand-alone blockbuster.
I do think it could have also benefited from a stronger portrayal of time shifts. We are told Oddyseus spends a decade on his war efforts but another 7 years with Calypso, but his arc with Circe is resolved almost immediately. Telemachus's journey, too, feels like it spans a week at best.
On the other hand, as usual with Nolan's films, while I find significant flaws in the contrast between intended messaging and the end result, I can't deny the level of craftsmanship that went into it not the affective power the film had over me as I was watching it, even as someone in Europe I wasn't able to catch it in 70mm IMAX