Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' premiered in London to raves calling it his biggest film yet

Christopher Nolan showed his cards Monday night. "The Odyssey" had its world premiere at the Odeon in London's Leicester Square, and the embargo on first reactions lifted along with the curtain. Two weeks before the movie reaches theaters, the people who have seen it are not being shy.

The short version: they loved it. Reactions posted after the screening run hot, with critics and industry watchers calling it the largest film Nolan has made and, in more than a few cases, his best. Trade coverage from The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline and TheWrap read the same way. Reviewers described relentless set pieces and a final act that pays off, backed by a score several of them called overwhelming. IndieWire's Anne Thompson, who has covered awards races for decades, walked out calling the film an early Best Picture front-runner and floating Matt Damon for his first acting Oscar as Odysseus.

First reactions are not reviews. They come from a premiere crowd, they run short, and they skew warm by design. The full critic verdicts are still ahead. But the direction is clear, and for a movie Universal reportedly spent around $250 million on, shot start to finish on IMAX film cameras, that is the reaction the studio needed.

There is a second story running underneath the applause. The final trailer has piled up more than half a million dislikes on YouTube, and the pile-on is tied to casting decisions a part of the audience has been arguing about since the cast was announced. So two things are true at once right now: a room full of people calling the movie a triumph, and a comment section voting the trailer down in the hundreds of thousands. Which one predicts the opening weekend is the real question, and July 17 is when it gets answered.

The film itself has not changed since the last time we wrote about it. Damon plays Odysseus on the long road home from Troy, Anne Hathaway is Penelope, and Tom Holland is Telemachus. The supporting bench is deep, with Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, Zendaya and Elliot Page all in it. It runs 2 hours and 52 minutes, it is rated R, and Nolan has billed it as the first feature shot entirely on IMAX cameras. He has spent two years selling that format as the reason to see this in a theater rather than at home. The premiere crowd, at least, is sold.