Gareth Edwards, after working with properties created by other people on his last two high-profile projects, has made something of his own in The Creator. A wholly original sci-fi story, The Creator may be one of the most interesting, visually spectacular, and relevant movies to come out this year. That's not all that surprising to those who appreciated the director's takes on Godzilla and Star Wars, both of which took decidedly different approaches to how to tell familiar stories.
The Creatorhues much closer to Rogue One in how it combines its futuristic elements with lush, natural environments. Edwards also uses technology and the state of the world to examine an individual character and their outlook rather than only looking at the big, world-destroying picture (for the most part). These choices make The Creator one of the more biting and incisive sci-fi movies to come out of the studio system in the last few years.
Set in a world where technology developed much faster and earlier than in reality (a fact that is creatively established through an opening credits sequence featuring a vintage newsreel), AI and robots (some of which look more human and are known as simulants or "sims") have become a part of everyday life. After a nuclear bomb is detonated in the heart of Los Angeles, all AI is banned in the United States. However, the use and development of AI technology remains legal in New Asia (a renaming of the continent that evokes Orwell's 1984). As such, the United States has developed a massive space station known as NOMAD that can launch global missile strikes when necessary, in the name of protecting the world from the development of dangerous AI.
This is all just worldbuilding for the real story of the movie, which focuses on Joshua (John David Washington), a soldier who has been tasked with finding Nirmata, or the titular creator, the person who developed the AI systems and has become something of a divine figure for robots. Joshua's mission goes very wrong, forcing him to lie low for five years stateside. He is then given a new mission, one that involves finding a dangerous new weapon created by Nirmata. Of course, there are complications, the most important of which is that the weapon is actually a simulant child. Joshua and the child, whom he names Alphie, go on the run together in order to find Joshua's wife and to locate Nirmata.
In an expanding world of stories involving a man and kid who are forced to go on a journey together (think The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, and even the new Walking Dead spinoff focusing on Daryl Dixon), it would be easy to write The Creator off as another entry in this strangely expanding canon. However, what makes The Creator stand out, aside from its perhaps prescient view of the future, is its thematic flair. While it would also be easy to assume this is a movie about the current state of AI technology and where it may be leading, it is actually a far more intelligent critique of US foreign policy.
It's easy to draw a straight line between what happens in The Creator and the geopolitics that led to the Vietnam War. Here, AI can be seen as a stand-in for communism. At one point, an American general announces that the United States is not at war with the people of New Asia, but rather the dangerous AI it is harboring. It's also not entirely subtle that the story takes place in what appears to be Vietnam (though the specific country is never actually named). Edwards's story smartly focuses on the problematic nature of US military strength being used to determine another country's political destiny. It's all the more damning as it becomes more apparent that New Asia's blend of humanity and robots has not resulted in any calamitous events like the nuclear blast in Los Angeles.
Even with its big themes, The Creator never loses sight of the personal stakes. Washington sells Joshua as someone whose beliefs about technology and the world in general are thrown into disarray as he expands his worldview and his previously established biases begin to fade. The rest of the cast is uniformly strong. Newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles imbues Alphie with childlike curiosity but balances it with her almost meditative calm. By contrast, Allison Janney acquits herself well as a villain. Janney has always had a knack for playing biting and acerbic characters, and her Colonel Howell is no exception. The difference here is that Howell aggressively believes that she is doing the right thing and will stop at nothing to complete her mission.
All of this, the characterization, the emotion, the political commentary, would not stand up if it wasn't beautifully rendered on the screen. Luckily, Edwards applies the used future aesthetic that has been so successful in Star Wars to the world of The Creator. This world feels like a real future, one where there is a combination of technology that is either pristine and well-funded or dirty, beat-up, and salvaged. The impressive visual effects combine human faces with robotic skeletal structures, and it all blends seamlessly. Rural landscapes are coupled with towering facilities and other future technologies, calling to mind the work of Simon Stålenhag, whose art also inspired the look of Tales From The Loop. Like that series, The Creator makes its technology feel advanced and retro at the same time (like a a screen displaying images that is bent and aged like an old photograph), giving every scene a tangible texture.
Aside from its potent commentary and characterization, The Creator is just a solid sci-fi blockbuster that knows when to let loose with its action sequences and when to show restraint and let its scenes breathe. Gareth Edwards may have just given audiences one of the best original stories in years, one that should garner as much attention as possible as the year quickly heads toward its conclusion. The Creator is a great reminder during two historic Hollywood strikes that passion and creativity are needed more than ever in the big-budget sphere.
The Creator opens in theaters on September 29th.
The Creator
Gareth Edwards crafts one of the year's best big-budget movies with The Creator, a timely and meaningful look at technology, geopolitics, and what it means to be human.