Gareth Edwards fourth feature is a gorgeous reminder of how futuristic films should look, but crosses a lot of familiar ground as it speaks to warnings and hope.
Can humans and technology exist together coherently? It’s a question the sci-fi genre has examined through many stories and decades, and honestly, the results don’t seem all too great. Humans are imperfect, and when we create things like A. I or robots, we expect them to be of service to us. However, we ignore that this intelligence can escape our control, and these entities will see our imperfections for what they are and rebel. The Terminator franchise amalgamates those fears, whereas Stephen Spielberg’s A.I. raises the question of whether we can consider our creations as equals alongside us.
The timing of Gareth Edwards’s The Creator release couldn’t be better. Currently, society is weighing the pros and cons of artificial intelligence, and benefactors with a multitude of money are laying it at the altar in a generative arms race. Without much oversight or guardrails in place, we have not learned much from our fictional cautionary tales. Not confined to social media platforms or browsers, A.I. has evolved in its plane of existence in the world of Edwards’s latest feature. Once working in tandem (or at the service of humankind), government officials decided to take a hands-off approach concerning their defense systems. Tragically, a nuclear catastrophe destroyed much of Los Angeles; the machines are the scapegoats.
In this futuristic landscape of 2070, any technologically advanced beings named simulants have been outlawed in the western hemisphere, but are living amongst one another and humans in New Asia. The U.S. military has caught wind of a potential weapon in the works and has an ultimate aircraft of destruction named the USS Nomad. Amidst this new world war exists Joshua (John David Washington), an undercover ops agent, and his pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan).
Maya is presumed to have been killed accidentally in a raid gone astray. This sends Joshua into a tailspin, but not before his country comes calling with another mission. He is to find someone named Nirmata, their secret laboratory, and destroy it before the weapon comes to fruition. Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) tells him that Maya could still be alive to give him extra incentive.
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
The stakes and the overall story won’t necessarily be groundbreaking to anyone. While the first half of the film gets the viewer acquainted with the vast world, once Joshua finds the “weapon,” a simulant child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles with a very emotional and charming performance), he names Alphie, the stems are very apparent. Questions surround the massive attack itself and whether simulants are just being scapegoated for an error. Questions arise on whether a machine can take on emotions and phantom the concepts of living and dying. The Creator’s foreboding tone of war flows, reminiscent of worries during the Vietnam War and feverish imperialism.
At one point, the government states they are at war with stimulants only and not the continent of New Asia as a whole. Despite that empty statement, they destroy villages with impunity, and much of the pain is felt through the exquisiteness of Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer’s cinematography style. If anything, The Creator is a visual marvel of a feature in its use of real locations adjacent to the CGI placements. It feels like the future without having to overcompensate for being on a sound stage. Every firefight battle feels urgent, dangerous, and chock full of implications that matter.
In a way, the delicate beauty and care in how The Creator is filmed slightly fills in the cracks of the story. However, things begin to falter during the third act and the overall ethos of love. Something about this child binds Joshua and Maya, and Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz want you to feel a link between the two and why Alphie is so important.
Due to the tragic result of the beginning, much of their story is told through flashbacks. Besides the protective layer Washington gives in his character as he softens his machinist stance, the ending feels rushed. It concerns itself with getting to the finish line; rather than taking a few extra beats to deviate from, we should all be nicer to each other. In a place where someone’s consciousness can be downloaded on a drive and played in a replica for 30 seconds, it’s a little bit more complicated than being so clean.
Even with its faults, The Creator should still be seen for all it’s trying to accomplish in its world-building and specifications of a future that could happen. Edwards has put so much effort into the aesthetic here that it’s almost fathomable – even if some plot points ebb and flow.
