Three months after Elon Musk announced that Grok would produce a full-length, "historically accurate" film adaptation of "The Odyssey," the company has released just seven minutes of content—which it now describes as "Episode 1 of our Odyssey series."

Musk had earlier criticized Christopher Nolan's take on "The Odyssey" because Nolan cast nonwhite and transgender actors. In many respects, Nolan serves as an ideal counterpoint to Musk: whereas the SpaceX and Tesla CEO promotes data centers in space and shares a constant flow of AI-generated material, Nolan has called himself "a techno-skeptic" and remarked that before AI, he had never witnessed a technology "so completely rejected by the public."

Nolan's "The Odyssey" made extensive use of visual effects, yet it remains fundamentally a practical filmmaking achievement, with a production that spanned six countries and involved thousands of cast and crew members. Following its July release, the film achieved remarkable box office success, selling out Imax screenings for months and emerging as the likely frontrunner at the upcoming Academy Awards. As for Grok's "Odyssey"—made in partnership with Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker—viewers can judge for themselves. It's admittedly not as spectacularly ugly as I had anticipated, and it's certainly more impressive than other videos Musk has recently shared. Without prior knowledge, there were moments when I might have believed these were real actors navigating a real sea. And while I can't assess Grok's historical accuracy, it does appear that every character has a Musk-approved skin tone, with the narrator employing a British accent familiar to anyone who has played a fantasy video game or watched a generic Hollywood epic from the past quarter-century. What the footage truly lacks is any feeling of artistry, inspiration, or human interest. The backstory—conveyed through the aforementioned voiceover—drags on endlessly, eventually giving way to a succession of bearded faces, each delivering stilted lines that make Nolan's dialogue sound like Shakespeare. Although a few individual shots might offer a passable imitation of reality, the entire piece feels utterly airless, providing viewers with no sense of momentum and no reason to care about anyone or anything on-screen. And whereas I had no difficulty staying engaged throughout the nearly three-hour runtime of Nolan's "Odyssey," I found myself listlessly checking how much time remained before the Grok version had even reached its midpoint. It's difficult to imagine wanting another seven minutes of this, let alone a full-length film.