Athena is a magic trick. There’s no other way to describe it. For 90 minutes, it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. It makes you submit yourself to being hurled violently from one scene to the next, keenly aware the entire time that you’re strapped to a vehicle of chaos, headed towards the edge of a cliff. It’s a Greek tragedy, a Biblical drama about brotherhood, and the most flashily directed action film since Mad Max: Fury Road.
Such is the level of technical skill on display here that even the Corridor Crew will be bamboozled by how director Romain Gavras — son of the legendary Costa-Gavras — managed to pull off some of the sequences.