Unique in France reads the screen, slightly curved, before the movie starts. The Pathé Odysseum in Montpellier boasts of being one of the three cinemas on the European continent (the UK has another three) that projects The Odyssey as Christopher Nolan conceived it: in the immersive IMAX 70 mm format. The other two cinemas are in Brussels and Prague.
Like our parents and grandparents did when crossing the border to go to Perpignan to buy banned records and watch movies censored by the dictatorship (from David Bowie to A Clockwork Orange), my best friend and I drove 345 kilometers from Barcelona to see the film Nolan-style. It doesn't have the epicness of finding the original cover of Sticky Fingers that Andy Warhol designed for the Rolling Stones (that zipper that came down...), in 2026 the challenge was to get a ticket: in summer, they were all sold out, so we took advantage of the Diada holiday on September 11.
At 26£ per ticket, we chose the last screening at 9 p.m. in French version. There's a thrill in hearing Matt Damon speak French... As if it were metafiction, when exiting the highway, Google Maps directs us to Boulevard Pénélope to reach the Odysseum shopping center. There are also a Rue Achille and other mythological references in this somewhat artificial neighborhood built in the late 90s.
What used to be agricultural land and pine forests is now home to an American-scale entertainment commercial district: the Planet Ocean aquarium, a super bowling alley, a Laser Game, an Ikea, an ice rink, a McDonald's (where we had dinner), a Holiday Inn (where we stayed), and more. And the Pathé Odysseum, which opened in 1998 as the Gaumont cineplex, stands as the mothership of a neighborhood named after the Homeric myth but aesthetically inspired by the retrofuturism of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick.
From the outside, the concrete bulk of the Pathé is imposing. The entire side is covered with a vinyl of over 100 meters of Matt Damon fighting a giant/cyclops. The cinema's interior has a retrofuturistic feel, with its 80s patterned carpet, colorful sofas, and an arcade area. A Haggen-Dazz ice cream parlor surprises with its variety: more than popcorn, the French come in with ice creams.
And where on earth are the popcorn? They are not easy to find (nor the bathrooms, by the way...): at the back, there is a candy store, drink fridges, and a shelf of popcornself-service, without the machine that makes them instantly or the human who serves them. Here, everyone takes what they want and pays at a screen/register, as Decathlon or Carrefour are implementing in their stores in Spain.
Upon entering Screen 18, the arrangement of the 228 seats, in an amphitheater shape with a lot of vertical distance between rows, catches the eye. You could have Pau Gasol in front of you and he wouldn't block the screen. It must be acknowledged that the French audience is much quieter and orderly than in Spain: queues are scrupulously respected, no one raises their voice, and during the screening, not a murmur is heard (perhaps except for the two Spanish women trying to be discreet).
Until the trailer for Dune 3 by Denis Villeneuve, which premieres in December, starts, the IMAX 70mm effect is not noticeable. First, the sound is felt in the back and reverberates in the armrests; then, the image engulfs everything: it's like being inside the ship with Javier Bardem. The battle scene is breathtaking, my friend and I grab each other's arm with a Wow. As Nolan says in interviews, "the screen disappears, you get a 3D sensation without the glasses."
Without going into the movie review: the best part of The Odyssey was the Dune trailer.