IT WAS NOT ALWAYS AT THE front of my mind, but it certainly had a permanent place somewhere in the back. Ever since the COVID pandemic, I have wondered how the movie theaters will survive. The first few months, after we were able to go back safely, I was usually the only one in the theater. Granted, I avoided the weekends, always going early in the week and picking a seat in the last row on the side. My logic was believing most people gravitate to the center section and prefer being halfway from the screen. As time went on, my logic proved to be true, except for the occasional high school or college couple who wanted to sit in the back row and make out. Since time has gone on and COVID is no longer in the front of most people’s thoughts, there has been an uptick of theater patrons. Every week I have done a mental count of how many patrons are seated and the numbers vary between me alone, up to two dozen at the most. I would sit during the ending credits and wonder how long could the movie theaters remain open with such dismal numbers. There have been several great films, but in my opinion there seems to be more average to below quality movies being shown these days.      FOR TODAY’S MOVIE REVIEW FILM, I attended, for the first time, a Saturday night opening weekend showing, which I have not done for over a decade. Because there was so much hype and advertising, I went to the movie complex the day before and bought our tickets. At that time, when I was picking out our seats, I saw there was twenty to thirty seats already sold. When we came back the next day for our showing and sat down in the theater, I was stunned to see almost all the seats were filled. It had been so long that it came to me as a shock to see so many people. I wondered if it was like this every weekend, that I have simply not been a part of it; but keeping track of the box office opening weekend results, I do not think theaters are consistently full every weekend. However, seeing the results for this past weekend, I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of sales for this film; it is very encouraging and I hope it is a bellwether of what is in store for movie theaters.      BASED ON THE EPIC POEM BY Homer, written in the 8th century BCE, this adventure, dramatic fantasy movie tells the story of a husband and father’s long, perilous trek home after a decisive battle. With Matt Damon (Oppenheimer, The Last Dual) as Odysseus, Tom Holland (Spider-Man franchise, Uncharted) as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada franchise, The Idea of You) as Penelope, Corey Hawkins (The Color Purple, Straight Outta Compton) as Polybus, and Robert Pattinson (The Drama, The Batman) as Antinous; this latest film from Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Tenet) was truly special. The directing and filming of this ancient story was mesmerizing; the cast was brilliant and the scenes were near breathtaking, massive in scope. I have racked my brain, but I could not find a memory of me ever reading or hearing this story. The closest I could come to was a childhood memory of a favorite film of mine called “Jason and the Argonauts,” which I had to look up as soon as I returned home to see if they were both based on the same poem; though similar in nature, they are not. The movie was nearly three hours long, which in the first half seemed to me to be too long. I looked at my watch a couple of times. However, the creativity in presenting the scenes and the action scenes were captivating. The more I have thought about this picture, the more I have grown to love it. And to coin a cliche, the icing on the cake was being in a full movie theater and seeing everyone applauding as the ending credits began to roll.

3 1/2 stars