The Creator
The Creator is a futuristic science fiction film about a world where humanity is at war with AI (not to be confused with the strikes in Hollywood). The film follows reluctant protagonist Joshua, who would rather be watching tv than saving the world, as he attempts to track down a weapon that could be used to wipe out humanity and find his wife, who he had believed dead.
It has been a few weeks since I’ve been to a proper movie theater, so it felt good to lean back in those leathery seats. This was my first time at this particular theater, but I’m sure I’ll be back.
This was a beautiful movie to look at. The CGI was incredible – there was never a single moment where I thought something looked fake. Considering the sub-100 million dollar budget, other more expensive franchise movies no longer have an excuse for bad green-screen.
I thought the script here needed a bit more work structurally. The pacing was majorly off. The ending (the best part for my money) was very rushed, and the middle was too drawn out. It also did not seem to trust its audience, the main character having a flashback to something that happened less than 60 seconds ago on screen, making sure the audience didn’t forget (no one did).
The characters were also quite thin – no one really had any defining traits to make them unique except the bad guys were mean and the good guys were brave. The only character with an arc was Joshua, who throughout the film learns how to love someone so different from himself – which to the credit of the film was actually really touching and sweet.
The film has a confusing message on AI. At parts, feeling pro-AI, and at others decidedly against it. Maybe it makes sense strictly from the perspective of what you see on screen – but contextualizing it with real life, it suddenly becomes complicated and muddied.
I’ll probably never be compelled to watch this again. It was not a bad movie by any means, but it could’ve been amazing without changing too much. The fact that it was an original science fiction film is a major selling point for me and attracted me to it in the first place. Giving money to filmmakers who want to tell original stories is more important than ever. I respect the hell out of director Gareth Edwards for taking many big swings in this one and making a very solid film that I would only softly recommend, but I am very glad it exists.
