Equal parts Akira and Apocalypse Now, Gareth Edwards’ The Creator is a sweeping sci-fi epic so visually arresting that its many narrative sins are easy to forgive, if not to overlook. Set mostly in the year 2070, the film posits a war between a United States that has banned artificial intelligence and “New Asia,” which is either a sovereign nation or a NATO-style alliance of states where artificial beings called “Simulants” enjoy full citizenship and seem to coexist peacefully with humans.
As with so many of the seminal AI movies from which Edwards has drawn inspiration (2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Rugrats in Paris, etc.), The Creator conjures a fascinating world and then struggles to find a suitably involving story to guide us through it. The convoluted plot Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz have ginned up concerns a traumatized cybernetic soldier (John David Washington, spry and charismatic, but lacking in dimension) who’s been living hand-to-mouth ever since Maya (Gemma Chan), a woman he grew close to during a deep-cover assignment, was killed in a botched raid. The clunky, flashback-heavy structure of the film gives Maya significant screen time, especially in light of the fact she’s just a plot device (tired!).
Even though Washington’s character has been out of action for half a decade, his superiors believe his erratic memory might contain the location of a lab where an AI superweapon with the potential to end the war has been created. So in the movie’s least credible story point, they put him with a special ops squad headed by Allison Janney, then drop them all behind enemy lines in the hope that his memory might come back once they’re on the ground and under fire. I’m no West Point graduate, but this does not seem like a tactically sound plan, no matter how many Primetime Emmys Janney won for The West Wing and Mom. If you’ve seen the The Creator’s trailer, then you already know the Ultimate Weapon is, in fact, an adorable moppet model Simulant played (very well, it must be said) by then-7-year-old actor Madeleine Yuna Voyles.
Again, the plot is the weakest element of a film that is in other respects—cinematography, production design, editing—an impressive show of strength. Edwards is a visual stylist first and a storyteller second, but the more you surrender to the dream-logic imposed by his elegant camera, the more fun you’ll likely have. In the tradition of genre classics like E.T., Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Iron Giant, The Creator’s emotional core is the relationship between Washington and the kid—he calls her Alphie—who, unlike other “Sims,” will grow up, as humans do, and acquire superpowers, as Christ figures in genre movies do. I never grokked why Washington’s character and the film itself seem so bowled over by the fact that 45 years from now, the most advanced artificial being in existence will be able to turn off a TV (or an oncoming battle tank) just by pressing her little palms together in prayer, but whatever. If you’re at all surprised by Washington’s character developing a protective impulse toward the moppet-bot he’s been ordered to kill, I congratulate you on your very first filmgoing experience. A world of sensory and emotional delight awaits you.
In the macro sense, The Creator is another exploration of the profound question that drives all the other films I’ve named: If we give machines the ability to think and feel, do we not owe them the same dignity and compassion we afford to human beings? With the caveat that the way we treat our fellow humans is pretty shitty most of the time?
In the micro sense, it’s an opportunity for Edwards to populate the jungles and rivers of southeast Asia with endless varieties of lovingly designed robots and battlecraft—and even temples the ’bots have erected to honor their deities. Shot largely on location in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Nepal, The Creator has an evocative sense of place and of scale that so many mega-budget tent poles in the green screen-y Netflix Age of blockbusters have lost. Edwards is also much more skilled at building tension-filled set pieces than many of his peers: There’s a bit involving Alphie’s efforts to defuse an ambulatory suicide-bomber bot (one of the film’s many very good technological gags) that’s more memorable than any individual scene from the last half-dozen Marvel flicks, for example.
Though Edwards is clearly trying to follow in the giant footprints of Stanley Kubrick and James Cameron, it’s more apt to compare him to District 9 writer-director Neill Blomkamp, another filmmaker whose screenwriting lags far behind his visual sensibility. Edwards broke into movies with 2010’s thoughtful, no-budget sci-fi flick Monsters, then scaled way up for the marvelous 2014 remake of Godzilla. His prior picture, 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, underwent significant reshoots by future Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy prior to its release, reportedly with the aim of clarifying the film’s conclusion.
Given how confounding much of The Creator’s overstuffed third act is, you can see why Lucasfilm honcho Kathleen Kennedy decided Edwards could use some help. But this sensory feast of a movie also makes it plain why she hired him to tell a sweeping story set A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away in the first place.
The Creator opens at area theaters Friday, Sept. 29.