Musk's AI Odyssey Lands With a Thud

Elon Musk's long-teased answer to Christopher Nolan's blockbuster The Odyssey has finally landed—and the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw calls it a snooze. In a scathing review, Bradshaw recounts how Musk, after blasting Nolan's "woke" casting choices sight unseen, vowed to make a more historically authentic version using his Grok AI. The first seven-minute online "episode" of the film, created with Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker and shared Friday on X, is "as meaningless as a laptop screensaver," Bradshaw writes, noting that Musk seems less interested in storytelling than in settling an old score. More takes:

• For AV Club's Olivia Singh, the episode is "as uninspired as expected"—"less like the start of a cohesive feature film and more like a choppy trailer or sizzle reel, at best."
• It's an "AI horror show so creepy and uncanny you can feel your eyeballs twitch as it unfolds in all its sloppy gruesomeness," writes the Telegraph's Ed Power, describing characters with "a zombie-like quality."
• It's "lifeless" and it "sucks," writes Liz Shannon Miller at Consequence of Sound, noting there's no explanation for why the Ithicans are seeking vengeance on Troy.
• The Independent rounds up viewers' takes, ranging from "pure garbage" to "no taste." In another opinion, X user @WilliamOakham calls the episode "the worst kind of slop," noting the inclusion of "medieval tunics and late Roman cloaks."