- The Creator
- Produced and Directed by Gareth Edwards
- September 29, 2023
In a war against artificial intelligence, an ex-special forces soldier is ordered to hunt down and kill an individual that has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war.
What drew me to this movie was not only how beautiful The Creator looked but that it appeared to have some substance to it all. This is as sharp looking and detailed as any $200 million special effects heavy film of the past five or ten years. More so I would say. Effects are used only enough to tell the story and not just to provide cool visuals. Ironically that makes them impressive because they blend in and look so very real. What exists and what is fake becomes difficult to discern.
Something about this felt like a science-fiction allegory to the Vietnam War. It is the West against Asia with A.I. standing in for Communism maybe? The fighting and how the strike team handles the villagers they encounter is all very reminiscent of tales from that time. Civilians and military suffer alike. A little heavy handed there.
The Creator is a great idea with everything reaching the screen well directed but it’s just too long and nothing feels real to the characters. Actors talk to be heard and not to keep things moving. The narrative straddles the fence as it puts forward multiple points of view and never settles on one.
It never comes down too strong on any side. A.I. and the West are given a pretty good case for their respective actions. When the narrative is framing one as bad something occurs to blunt or undo that a scene or two later. The only thing that is clear is that war is bad and you should fight for love. Pretty generic there concepts there. This is handled expertly enough that any view it could take would not overtake the narrative and make the film into a lecture but no view stands strong.
As a film I think it goes on far too long. It’s beautiful to look at and beautifully written, but there is just too much to get through from the beginning to the end. I’m not against long films. The Ten Commandments is among my favorite movies, and it pushes something like four hours. But there’s always something happening and moving the story forward. Here it’s just a lot of well-acted and well-performed dialogue in beautiful and detailed environments but does any of it move the movie forward?
My attention was often brought back to The Creator by an interesting visual from this lived in looking world and not held by the presentation. I liked what I saw but again it was just so slow moving. And this movie certainly has something to say but doesn’t say very much about it. Rather it chooses to spend time with unnecessary dialogue in overly long scenes.
This movie could’ve lost a half hour or so and retained much of its impact. Heck, with a tighter narrative it would have had more impact. A long film with little occurring allows any feelings to dissipate. I’m not saying it’s entirely uninteresting but it’s not as engrossing as it should’ve been.
This whole war is about fighting A.I. which could be used to touch on some timely topics of today. But the focus is destroying a new weapon which can destroy the Western super weapon that is winning the war. Turns out it’s a machine built to look like a child and it can grow. It is the scan of an unborn child but how exactly does it mature? Cells divide so does this have cells making it organic technology? Or does it regularly upgrade itself? Never answered.
And as it grows it will get more powerful. There are scenes where this simulant (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) referred to as ‘Alpha-O’ or ‘Alphie’, can turn on/off or just control others of its kind. There are some serious implications there and possible allegories to the real world that are just ignored. Alphie can make slaves of other thinking machines.
The story of The Creator poses so many questions, like being able to copy memory and how to deal with artificial intelligence. What exactly does ‘alive’ mean or what makes us human. There are hints about religion given simulants walking around in Buddhist monk garb, but nothing is ever done with any of it here.
Gareth Edwards is not a slouch. While I have not seen Monsters, I have seen his take on Godzilla and his contribution to Star Wars of Rogue One. Both do well with the characters and concepts they hint at but not so much here. Certain things are taken as obvious without ever being crafted. Motivations or relationships are superficially built but given almost no depth.
Edwards gets ever so close to the bond between Alphie and Joshua (John David Washington) or Joshua and his wife Maya (Gemma Chan) but in neither case does it quite feel completely genuine. I just didn’t believe that Joshua loved Maya and that her loss could be devastating. I did get though that he was feeling ever increasingly sympathetic for the machines. That works. Why though…
I thought that The Creator was okay, but I can’t really say I liked it. I wanted to like it. Really. I’m all for original concepts. It stumbled and fell short by having too much and never really addressing a thing. Was nobody able to say ‘No’ to Gareth Edwards or willing to give him feedback? Or did the studio not care? I’m not sure.
The Creator isn’t bad, but it could be so much better with some judicious editing at the bare minimum. If you’re looking for some original science fiction this is a possibility, but it is quite flawed. Proceed with caution.
Warren Watched A Movie 