‘The Creator’: Review

Dir. Gareth Edwards. US. 2023. 133mins

Bombastic sci-fi and determined world-building: Gareth Edwards’ shot-on-the-fly epic The Creator is set in the near-enough future and pits AI sentients against humans across the battlefields of Southeast Asia in the wake of the devastation of Los Angeles. A proud magpie in the pursuit of popcorn spectacle, The Creator reverses The Terminator to ask: what if AI were the good guys? Rogue One’s Edwards delivers a film which is reliably visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale. 

  Visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale

One of the few new IPs on offer in this marketplace, The Creator lacks the intellectual depth or ambition of the films it references – from Apocalypse Now to Blade Runner, The Terminator, Star Wars and beyond to the imagery of Kundun –  but it also has that entire marketplace to itself right now as bigger titles shy away from SAG promotional bans. (As this is not an actor’s film, that is an astute enough decision.)  With audiences back in the cinema game, Searchlight might see larger grosses than its conservative predictions, led by some very attractive tech work. As The Creator’s budget — reported at a bargain $85m – was surprisingly low, long-term prospects look rosy even if reviews run cooler. It’s purpose-built for a return.

Swift initial exposition reveals that the detonation of a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles at the hands of AI has killed one million people: the tech is now banned, but, in 2065, The Republic of New Asia still works with – and harbours – AI, leading to global conflict. The US military has developed a money-shot sky-hangar called Nomad which combs the earth with lasers and, before we know it, we’re in ‘New Asia’ and a Vietnam War film as hard-ass American marine-types led by an unconvincing Alison Janney try to track down The Creator or ’Nimrata’ (Edwards shot on the hoof in Nepal, Indonesia, Cambodia and Tokyo, but mainly Thailand).

Joshua (John David Washington), a double amputee since the nuclear strike, is working undercover in Asia, embedded with the robots and married to the pregnant AI sympathiser Maya (Gemma Chan), trying to track down and annihilate the mysterious Creator who has been developing powerful new tech. A failed raid later, and Maya is dead, with Joshua in permanent mourning. Brought back to Asia by Janney’s character with the lure that Maya might still be alive, Joshua finds himself questioning his loyalties and attitudes to AI when he discovers ‘The Child’ Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), the Creator’s AI invention who will grow up to be able to control all technology.

The fact that this is not an actor’s film winds up being an all-too-obvious endorsement for human performance in the very middle of the AI debate the film is preoccupied with.Washington and Janney lead the cast, backed up by Ken Watanabe and a little-seen Chan but, in reality, they’re mostly there to show off the tech and the world Edwards and his team have ingeniously developed to put it in. The script, by Edwards and Chris Weitz, doesn’t have much time for human emotions past the superficial (love, revenge), while the robots are a fairly hapless bunch in need of human guardianship – they don’t get to have personalities, apart perhaps from Alphie, who is played sweetly by child actor Voyles.

The Creator instead puts all its efforts into the world, which is an engaging variation on a Bladerunner where street signs exhort citizens to ‘support AI - donate your likeness’ and robot Buddhist monks wear saffron robes. The paddy fields of conflict come straight to us from Apocalypse Now and, were it not for the fact that New Asians are presented as heroic friends of the despised robots, there would be a case to prosecute for lazy repetition of some very tired visual tropes. In an appropriately retro manner, ILM takes on effects here, and there is no doubt that the visual representation of AI robots is compelling enough to sell this film on screens and home viewing.

Perhaps appropriately for a film which is assembled, like a jigsaw, from so many parts, it can be hard to find The Creator’s heart, which only flashes to life intermittently. Chances to develop the robots apart from Alphie have largely been passed up, beyond an amusing/impressive sequence involving robot bombs who declare how it has been a pleasure to serve on the way to their own destruction. Hans Zimmer delivers an appropriate score — whether apocryphal or not, Edwards has told the story that he commissioned AI to replicate a Zimmer score, but it couldnot quite be managed. The same goes for The Creator itself, which is mostly there, but the human parts that are missing are still keenly felt.