The Creator
Therefore, it's hard not to be disappointed that "The Creator" isn't just a little bit better. The end product certainly has people talking about how beautiful the movie looks and how the effects are significantly better than movies with four times the budget, but (there's always going to be a "but" when discussing this movie) the story is sadly a stew of recycled ideas and strange narrative choices that keep the audience at a distance, resulting in a gorgeous but ultimately empty experience.
Set in a near future where artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to live alongside human beings, a nuclear explosion allegedly caused by AI destroys Los Angeles, leading the United States and their Western allies to try and eradicate AI from the planet completely. Nevertheless, AI remains embraced by New Asia, a region in Southeast Asia that resists the efforts of the U.S. and harbors the mysterious "Nirmata", the creator of the major advancements in AI who is seen as a godlike figure to the AIs living in the area. As part of their offensive, the U.S has built a gigantic trillion-dollar space station called NOMAD that ominously floats in orbit above New Asia, seeking out AI production facilities with its blinding beams of light and bombing them into oblivion.
We meet Joshua (John David Washington), an American undercover operative, as he happily lives his days in New Asia with his pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan). Suddenly NOMAD is there, sending everyone in the community running and outing Joshua as an operative, causing Maya to run away and seemingly be killed by NOMAD's attack. We skip to five years later, where Joshua is disillusioned and working cleanup in Los Angeles, when he's asked to come back to the Army and go back to his old town in New Asia to track down Alpha O, a new weapon created by Nirmata that allegedly has the capabilities to bring down NOMAD. I'm not giving things away (it was in the trailer) when I tell you that Alpha O turns out to be an incredibly advanced robotic child created by Nirmata with the ability to remotely control technology. Joshua is torn between his duty and his desire to protect and use the child to find Maya, who he learns may still be alive and in a place where Alpha O can lead him.
Joshua spends his time hiding from the local authorities and running from clichéd aggro American military types straight out of Avatar, led by the remorseless Colonel Howell (Allison Janney). The evil Americans attack and bomb local villages, threaten dogs and make children cry, all in an effort to try and find where Nirmata is hiding. There's a moment where giant tanks emerge from the trees with "U.S ARMY" printed on their sides in a comically stupid font, letting you know that these guys are real bad while unsubtly recalling similar scenes of carnage from the Vietnam War.
Joshua and Alpha One (who gets named Alfie) run from place to place, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake as the Army and NOMAD stay hot on their heels. The region is spectacularly rendered, populated with lush countryside and fantastic urban centers that mix traditional village imagery with colossal futuristic machines. The few quiet moments attempt to address the more philosophical issues at play, but we never really get deeper than surface level before NOMAD shows up guns blazing, and we're off to another hideout.
John David Washington was an interesting choice to anchor the movie, as his relaxed demeanor doesn't always help in trying to sell the more emotional moments. You can partly understand it for a while as his character is supposedly shattered from the loss of his wife, but things never get a chance to breathe, and by the time we get to the big dramatic climax, we have little reason to care about the connections between Joshua and his wife, who is only on screen for a few brief moments. Joshua's relationship to Alfie works in that the actor (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) is extremely cute and you inherently don't want anything bad to happen to her, but her hackneyed interactions with Joshua don't exactly present any kind of real bond between the two.
Even the AI elements aren't anything we haven't seen a hundred times in similar science fiction movies. The AI are presented as innocent victims who just want to be left alone and peacefully live alongside humans, which is certainly an interesting angle to take in 2023 (especially considering everything going on with AI in Hollywood at the moment). I suppose it's a somewhat fresh approach to not have robots be presented as mindless bots bent on killing all humans, but it's hard not to bring in feelings from our current real-world AI situation, fairly or unfairly.
The more you think about it, the less Joshua's motivations (and "The Creator" in general) make any kind of sense. On the other hand, it's very easy and often quite enjoyable to let yourself be swept away by the incredible set designs and flashy action set pieces. It's an uneven result that makes it hard to fully endorse the movie, no matter how much you may want to.
