We, Robots
Love it or hate it, Gareth Edwards aims high with his high IQ, semi-dystopian AI scifi epic.
The Creator
Director: Gareth Edwards • Writers: Gareth Edwards, Chris Weitz
Starring: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Ken Watanabe, Allison Janney, Ralph Ineson, Sturgill Simpson, Veronica Ngo
USA • 2hrs 13mins
Opens Hong Kong September 28 • IIA
Grade: A-
In Gareth Edwards’ The Creator, in 2065 Los Angeles is a smouldering crater thanks to an AI-powered nuclear strike five years earlier. Of course, according to some LA is already a smouldering crater, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s relevant is that the story pivots on our worst AI fears coming to life – like they have from Westworld to The Terminator to the WGA strike (now waiting to ratify a new agreement). And we’re not talking about the generative AI that currently exists. We’re talking (nearly) extinction level singularity event and the warfare that comes with that.
The Creator is a mammothly-scaled (amazingly so, for US$80 million, a pittance in current Hollywood economics), massively ambitious, original science fiction action-adventure that has some thoughtful, emotional issues on its mind and whose timing couldn’t be more apropos. It’s wrestling with the schism between East and West, our collective colonialist past, the movement of power and wealth, our acceptance (or not) of emerging technology and, duh, the nature of humanity. It quite shamelessly calls to mind chewy stuff like the mother of all “Am I real?” movies, Blade Runner, the us-and-them hysteria of District 9 and (particularly visually) Ex-Machina in its surety our creation will surpass us. That’s the tip of the iceberg in a very long, very recognisable film history, from which Edwards summons some of his own Rogue One and Godzilla vibes but still finds room for some legitimately thought-provoking elements. The Creator’s bad guys are paranoid, reactionary and violent – there’s s scene early on where thousands of “sims” are being culled and it comes very close to heart-breaking – and the good guys are forward-looking, considered and peaceful. It’s a classic black and white polarity with a heaping pile of grey in between.
Not snoring, whirring
In this post-human, post-racial world, AI has taken to replicating itself – reproducing – and mostly living in the safe haven of New Asia. AI comes in multiple forms – droid-ish configurations and simulants, or “sims”, which look and act like humans – but all have fled the US and it ally states in the wake of the LA bomb blast that outlawed the use of AI. Almost all are living somewhere in Asia, which has adopted and accepted AI as a part of life and still values its contributions, and where AI communities are allowed to thrive and evolve like any other. US special forces-type Joshua (John David Washington, showing off his ability to toggle between huge dick, lovesick fool and paternal guardian much better than in Tenet) has gone undercover looking for what is essentially the AI god, Nirmata, but he’s also gone native. He lives in what feels like Thailand with his pregnant wife, Maya (Gemma Chan) and among her AI family. When the Americans come barging in and level the community with their orbiting Death Star AI-hunting laser ship NOMAD, Maya’s killed and Joshua is renditioned back to the US. Years later, and still considered a bit of a traitor, Joshua is summoned by Colonel Howell (Allison Janney in full ice queen mode) and General Andrews (Ralph Ineson) to go back to the region and help the US find a super-weapon and wipe out the AI once and for all – before it wipes out humanity. It’s NOMAD versus Nirmata, military might versus non-confrontational resolution. Joshua finds the super-weapon, which turns out to be a seven-year-old child he names Alfie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles, who could have been way more annoying but who is quite excellent), who is the ultimate in machine learning.
The less you know about The Creator going in the better, this despite the fact several of the plot points are predictable. For plenty of non-sci-fi fans out there The Creator is going to feel like so much horse shit, and for legions of sci-fi nerds, it’s going to be derivative of a million movies, series and games that came before – or else written by ChatGPT. But like the 4,714th adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, it’s not about how familiar it is, or how predicable; it’s about what you do with those familiar elements, and Edwards and writer Chris Weitz (Rogue One but also Disney’s Pinocchio remake, ouch) have used the familiar to make new points and ask new questions. As much as it fears and loaths AI, humanity is waging war with itself, and Edwards and Weitz don’t skip on the allusions to the Vietnam War, the US-Mexico border, the Middle East and on and on and on.
Veteran illustrator and concept designer James Clyne’s production design (his first PD gig) goes a long, long way to creating a world that feels lived in, alien, threatening and utopian all at the same time. The sims are incredible, and bring new meaning to the phrase “memory slot”. He’s backed up by emollient work from DOPs Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Rogue One, Dune) and Oren Soffer; you can almost smell the megacities of the near future. Which makes it all the more disappointing that the broke down Star Wars aesthetic of the first three-quarters of The Creator is betrayed by the final act’s action set piece on the gleaming, Star Trek-y NOMAD. It’s disappointing, but it will make anyone just looking for some space bang bang happy if they don’t feel like asking what it is that makes us human, and if hydraulics are really a barrier to that. The Creator’s not perfect, Weitz could have put more work into the logic of the world. If the sims eat and drink, why are they all metallic when they get gut shot? Why are we still using guns and not, I don’t know, EMPs? Little things like that can take you out of a story, but if you’re invested in original, non-IP sci-fi you’ll forgive it. — DEK
*The Creator was reviewed during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, it wouldn't exist.