Review: The Creator

SYNOPSIS

Joshua (John David Washington, “Tenet”), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan, “Eternals”), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child (newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

What We Thought:

The Creator is visually stunning, it’s just a shame the story is a hot mess. While you watch a beautiful film and second guess how director Gareth Edwards shot it for only $80 million, you wonder if it was written by AI because there’s no way a human could have written this story.

The film takes place 50-60 years into the future. Humans have built AI and a nuclear attack starts a human vs. AI war. The US is anti-AI, but there is an area on Earth called New Asia where humans and AI live together. The anti-AI folk want to hunt down the AI robots and wipe them from the planet with a ship in the sky. They use John David Washington as an undercover agent to get information on the person leading the AI charge, but his wife (Gemma Chan) goes missing and Washington’s character has a change of heart when he realizes what the weapon is that the humans want eradicated.

If it sounds familiar it’s because it feels like a thousand other projects. Blade Runner immediately came to mind. As did District 9, Avatar, The Mandalorian and the director’s previous film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Plus it’s Kundun, but for a sci-fi audience. Allison Janney’s character is just Stephen Lang’s character from Avatar. New Asia might as well just be called Pandora.

Sticking with the Avatar comparison, just like that movie had humans as the bad guys and the blue creatures the good guys, this takes it a step further. This film is literally Americans bad, AI robots good. It wants you to root for robots not only over humans, but Americans specifically. I’m an American and sure we aren’t perfect, but you’ll never get me to root for a robot over an American. The Americans are war mongers trying to destroy everything. Yeah, no thanks.

And it is a shame because The Creator is visually stunning like I said. It looks like a $300 million film yet somehow got made for well under $100 million. The visual effects, the robots, the ships and technology are amazing for that budget. It reminded me of District 9 in how it has an indie film or lower budget (for its genre), but a huge cinematic look to it. I’d let Edwards direct a Stargate film because if he can make this movie for $80 million he’d crush a new Stargate flick. The Creator was disappointing because I was into it for a while. It looks amazing, has good music and score (Hans Zimmer), but ultimately the story makes you want to pick robots over humans and that’s not gonna happen for me.