KUALA LUMPUR, July 17 — I confess I didn't plan on watching Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

It's mainly because I am one of the few people I know who hates his Batman films, especially how they spawned an entire generation of young men who memorised The Joker's monologue and rewatch the films with religious fervour.

Nolan fans everywhere

The Pavilion Damansara TGV IMAX theatre was full for the first screening on opening day, despite it being 10.30am.

Yet there I was, alongside what I assumed were Nolan fans, because I had read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as a child and, well, it was making white supremacists angry.

Nolan's biggest sin (according to the rabid anti-woke crowd) was casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, the famous "face who launched a thousand ships."

Then there was the casting of trans man Elliot Page and even more loud noise about "DEI", "wokeness" and even more tiresome diatribe.

If a movie makes the "anti-woke" crowd angry I feel it is a personal duty to go support it.

Truth be told I almost backed out of going (I was lazy and the movie is 2 hours and 52 minutes long) but in the end, I am glad I went because storytellers recognise their own, and I think Nolan's take on the old legends is a good one.

Forsooth, the gods are cruel

The film is more easily enjoyed if you actually know the material because someone without even a sliver of knowledge about Greek and/or Roman mythology might not get a few references.

If you know who Zeus, Athena, Apollo and Poseidon are, that's great. If you don't, well, just know they are the Greek names of some of the most influential deities of that era and Odysseus is not a man who thinks much of faith or piety.

That's the core story at the heart of it — Odysseus, clever, cunning and fully aware that without his quicksilver mind, Troy could not have fallen.

His over-reliance on his cleverness, as fairytales warn you about, eventually unmasks his hubris and he learns his lesson the only way many men of his ilk do: the hard way.

Matt Damon was an interesting but very good choice by Nolan.

Damon is no Tom Cruise, bringing charisma and cheekbones to mesmerise you onscreen.

He is instead, the best at being the everyman actor.

"Do not look for gods in men," Odysseus says in the film.

Damon employs nuance, keeping his portrayal grounded, minus theatrics as Odysseus is made to understand that he truly is, despite his achievements and status as king of Ithaca, in the end just a man.

A cast of riches

Back again to the casting. Damon is Caucasian. Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Charlize Theron, even Robert Pattinson, the main actors, are all Caucasian, very heterosexual, very, as the kids say, cis.

Oh, there's also Zendaya, who plays Athena but she is more like the Greek god equivalent of Siri, popping up every so often to ask Odysseus if he is finally going to get a move on to go home.

So the online noise about a few non-white actors being cast is just that, noise.

In the end, directors should choose their actors, not some random person spending too much time on social media.

The acting all throughout is excellent. Hathaway is magnificent as Odysseus' wife Penelope and Holland very effective playing her son Telemachus, both in a trap they cannot yet see an escape from and the duo's emotional beats gives the movie some of its better character-driven moments.

Also exceptional were John Leguizamo as Odysseus's blind and most loyal servant Eumaeus and Himesh Patel as Odysseus' long-suffering second-in-command, with his role given a far kinder take than other versions.

I have read the books, I know their names and fates, and yet I still cared deeply about what became of the characters onscreen.

Old-fashioned storytelling needed more than ever

It's amazing that Nolan always finds studios willing to throw money at him to make colossally expensive films.

They should keep giving him money.

I was mesmerised by the battle scenes, that I was told, actually had all the people you saw onscreen.

No CGI. No camera tricks to make it look like a huge army when it was just ten men and shooting from behind.

I don't like realism for the sake of realism but Nolan's choices (like making Damon grow a beard instead of using a prosthetic) bring a beautiful immediacy to screen, whether it was the crashing waves of a churning sea or the thrilling Trojan Horse segment.

While the use of flashbacks was mostly useful it would probably be trickier for those unable to keep track of who is who in this long epic.

Yet the film does reward you at the end, in a way many films of this era have forgotten how to do, with the emotional and storytelling payoff that will resonate with you strongly if you have actually read the book.

It's one thing to read about what happened in The Odyssey but to see it brought to screen with colour and physicality was a real treat.

Bring some popcorn, maybe a tissue or two (a scene concerning a dog made me tear up even though I read all about it years ago).

Buckle in for The Odyssey if you like your storytelling like nursing an Old-Fashioned, savouring each slow sip until the end, leaving with a warmth inside that made all that time worth it.

I'll raise a glass to Mr Nolan then for giving me the best time in a cinema I've had this year.