Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" has landed in cinemas and the argument over whether it is the film of the year is already running. The budget says somebody believed in it very hard: around 250 million dollars, almost three hours of runtime, and shooting with new IMAX technology on locations across the world.

The cast list is almost rude to the competition. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Beside him: Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, John Leguizamo as the loyal servant Eumaeus, Elliot Page and Mia Goth. Nolan, who at 55 already has an Oscar for "Oppenheimer", brings back his mysticism and poetic existentialism.

The review coming out of Spain is careful: "a colossal superproduction full of attractions", "magnificent and impeccably crafted", perfect for anyone who enjoyed "300" and "Troy". But the same critic will not go so far as to call it the film of the year. He knows the audience decides that, not the budget.

What genuinely intrigues is that the Trojan horse is finally rendered with a realism no screen has managed before. A story almost three millennia old, retold in every school lesson across the Balkans, got 250 million dollars to look like it actually happened.

And there is an irony here worth noting. Homer wrote "The Odyssey" about a man who wants to get home and spends ten years travelling. Hollywood took a quarter of a billion dollars to explain to us that going home is hard. In the Balkans that lesson arrives for free, with a bus ticket and one suitcase.

Will three hours of Nolan convince you of something every house here with an empty room already knows?