THE CREATOR (2023)

THE CREATOR (2023)

Tagline: An original motion picture even from the director of Rogue One.

(Sci-Fi, Adventure, We Need To Talk About AI) [PG-13]

No. Shipley can't move. He's not looking good. At all. Police are everywhere. I don't know how I'm getting out right now. I don't even have an exit strategy right now.

In this one, we are taken to the future where AI robots are a pretty common thing. I am guessing somewhere along the line we discovered power sources that never run out because these things seem to not really need ever recharge. After a nuclear weapon is dropped on Los Angeles (I thought this already happened, but maybe that is because it just looks like LA has already been nuked), a war is started between AI and man. This has forced AI sympathizers and robots into hiding or into areas where they can live and work to defend themselves and mankind. Joshua is enlisted in the United States Army and is now caught between the love of his life, a secret weapon in the form of a child, and the fate of mankind. 

First off, I am just going to rip the band-aid off here. There are better sci-fi films out there than THE CREATOR. In fact, one came out last year called ALIENOID which is far better, but very few people in the United States bothered to watch because it’s a foreign film. I would venture to say that if you watch a lot of sci-fi, there is really nothing new or all that shocking here. 

So is this thing any good? Yes. It’s actually quite fantastic and it does have a LOT of substance some reviewers just seem to want to gloss over. How you view AI at this point probably isn’t a valid question because at this point it’s still pretty stealthy and wildly sloppy. In a few years that could vastly change, but one thing sci-fi seems to get wrong is that there is somehow this unlimited amount of industrial power to make hundreds of thousands of robots for personal use and that they are going to be affordable for all. Maybe someday that happens, but I don’t see any rent-a-robot personal assistant services out there in the next 10 years or more. This film takes us to a world like that where your connection with a robot might be more important to you than a connection with humanity. Heaven is mentioned a lot in this movie for a sci-fi flick. Contrary to popular belief humans are generally not good. Unlike the film suggests even if you were “good”, that doesn’t get you to heaven, it’s just a smart first step (John 3:16). 

We have this dichotomy explored in the movie where people have to take a side and that choice might not be as clear cut as some might think. For Joshua, it’s a deep challenging quest he is on and it is going to take everything he has to complete. This story asks us who our friends really are? Who are the real enemies? Is something dangerous just because it “might be”. Who controls the narratives in the AI/robot conversation? 

To expand on narratives and how we view things. Some might perceive a politician doing things to advance their family's wealth and power as “a father's love for his son”. Those same people might call that same situation, one of the more egregious social sins you can commit…nepotism if the same situation happened to someone they disliked. Your thoughts on something are typically controlled by the narrative you support. So how the war is viewed in this film depends on what you subscribe to as “the facts" of what happened. Just that dynamic of the film was brought out extremely well and I think the challenges we get here emotionally really shine throughout. This thing is also a visual spectacle and that aspect puts it over the top when it comes to mainstream sci-fi. 

The cast is superb with John David Washington (TENET) leading the way as Joshua. His performance here is absolutely incredible. This is another good outing for Allison Janney as Colonel Howell, but I think she did better in LOU. Gemma Chan (ETERNALS) plays Maya and is good, but I could have used a bit more screen time between her and Joshua. Most of their relationship is handled in flashbacks. Ken Watanabe (GODZILLA) is as great as Harun. This is also a great first outing for Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie. 

This thing is not perfect in that the setup asks us to buy that you can build a giant weapon in the sky but you can’t get the layout of certain parts of the world that are on land? I guess it’s possible this was a tech versus tech situation but a few little details like that should have been added to the script to eliminate the perceived plot holes. 

Having said this is a really good movie that reminds me of what we could get from Christopher Nolan if he wasn’t trying to scramble our brains in a giant theatrical blender in so many of his movies. 

THE CREATOR gets a solid 6 out of 7 for execution, production, superb design work, and performances, but if you watch a lot of sci-fi, some of these ideas have been around for a while. 

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