Odysseus: The Fall: 2.5-hour AI film slammed as unwatchable slop

The film arrives after Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey dominated at the box office and spurred new interest in classic literature among filmgoers. The Verge's review contends that Fountain 0's Ash Koosha is trying to skate by on that hype, turning AI slop into a modern-day iteration of direct-to-video cash grabs. That positioning, the review argues, puts the film at an incredible disadvantage from the start, inviting comparisons to one of the most critically and commercially successful movies of the last few years.

The review's central complaint is not just that the AI-generated visuals glitch, but that there is little to distract from: because current AI models can only generate scenes lasting a few seconds, the film plays as a disjointed collection of moments stitched together with little rhyme or reason. The reviewer notes that viewers unfamiliar with the story would struggle to follow it, since the film explains very little — Penelope's suitors, for example, only appear near the end.

Whether this becomes a lasting verdict on AI filmmaking or just one poorly executed attempt likely hinges on whether future AI-generated features can overcome the consistency and coherence problems the review documents. For now, the review's conclusion is that the existence of The Fall shows contempt for the medium by boiling the work of hundreds of skilled workers into slop produced by a tiny team.