‘Meaningless as a laptop screensaver’: reviewers slate Musk’s AI-made Odyssey film

Tesla tycoon launched Grok project after criticising Christoper Nolan’s diverse casting for his Homeric blockbuster

Elon Musk has released an AI-generated rival to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey after pledging to make a version “true to the art of Homer”.

Having criticised the hit movie in the summer, the tycoon said he would use Grok Imagine to make a “historically accurate” adaptation.

The initial results have been released on X in the form of a seven-minute episode made in conjunction with Wonder Studios, a London-based startup.

Musk had objected to Nolan’s casting choices – such as black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy – and used the blockbuster as a vehicle for reciting his views on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Tesla tycoon had promised to make a “full-length movie” version of Homer’s poem before the year ends but is sticking to a film released in episodes.

The first episode starts with Odysseus agonising over whether to join the Greek forces in their attempt to sack Troy. He then sails from Ithaca, his home island, with his men crying out for “vengeance” before they make land and start fighting.

The episode ends after 10 years of conflict, with Odysseus holding, ominously, a wooden figurine of a horse.

Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. Nolan’s version cost $250m (£188m) and was shot in multiple locations over 91 days with a vast crew. It has made $1.8bn at the box office.

Despite Musk’s criticisms of Nolan’s film, the creative team behind the latest take on Homer are supporters of the summer blockbuster.

Collins said he was a “huge fan” and told the Guardian: “We were not given any direction to make it [Musk’s version] anti-woke or anything like that. We were given the opportunity by one of the world’s best frontier labs to work on one of the best stories ever told.

“The brief was ‘help us understand the technology, where it’s strong, where it could use improvement’.”

Peter Bradshaw’s review in the Guardian gave it one star, saying: “Every single dramatic moment – Odysseus’s cod-insanity and his agreeing to fight, taking leave of his family, the hardship and adventure of the sea journey and the climactic decision – is all as motiveless and meaningless as the movement of shapes on a laptop screensaver.”

The episode on the Grok Imagine X account has received 7.3m views and some harsh feedback, with a reviewer in the Telegraph saying: “You can feel your eyeballs twitch as it unfolds in all its sloppy gruesomeness.”

Collins said Wonder aimed to make the next episode an improvement on the first and would address criticism, including the historical accuracy of its boats and rapid pacing.

“We are going to take a look at all of the comments and all of the things we could have done better and see if we can improve it. The goal is that the next episode we make is radically better than the last,” he said.

Wonder has also worked with Google DeepMind to produce an AI-generated video for the Lewis Capaldi track Something in the Heavens.