The Creator Movie Review
Nathan Swank
September 28th, 2023
An original science fiction film can be hard to come by these days, so THE CREATOR is quite refreshing for any fan of the genre. Tackling many themes about our views of A.I. and our different reactionary responses as humans, THE CREATOR treads familiar territory but flips the villainry script promoting love and acceptance through a fairly intense action blockbuster structure.
Set amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, THE CREATOR follows Joshua (John David Washington), an ex-special forces agent. Joshua is grieving and searching for his wife believed to be dead while also on orders to hunt down the Creator and destroy its weapon believed to have the power to end the war and destroy mankind. Joshua’s mission is complicated when he finds an unusual never-before-seen A.I. child, whose innocence and compassion opposes the death and destruction ordered upon it.
The supporting cast, including Gemma Chan, a human leader of the resistance, Allison Janney as a U.S. military Colonel bent on wiping out the A.I., and Ken Watanabe as an A.I. fighting for peace, are all absolutely terrific. Child actress Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie is phenomenal, bringing a lot of powerful emotionless emotion (does that make sense?) to the film. Admittedly, some of those moments never hit quite like they should for me. However, John David Washington finds those moments and delivers a lot of the weight in an otherwise eye-popping spectacle action film.
In 2010, Gareth Edwards made a name for himself with one of my favorite movies of the year in MONSTERS. He followed that up with big budget studio films, 2014’s GODZILLA and 2016’s ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (many consider one of the best in the STAR WARS universe. THE CREATOR melds the writer director’s independent skill of creating original work with a big budget behind him. Co-written by Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz, THE CREATOR is spectacular. The look and concept is mesmerizing while tackling an array of themes. What constitutes a soul and humanity? How we treat others and even things seems to be the bigger ideal to having a soul, while letting God make the judgements on his creation. I appreciated the heavenly yearn of the picture that I believe will be universal for audiences.
Whenever creation is involved the parallels to the Bible are inevitable. Like many characters before him, Joshua, in some respects, follows the path of the Apostle Paul, in that he first is leading one side before converting to the other side. But I don’t want to make THE CREATOR out so black and white. Joshua’s struggle is more of when you love someone or something, all other world problem’s become a lot less meaningful. Aren’t we all willing to sacrifice almost anything for those who we love? I hope many people see THE CREATOR and discover meaningful resolution or confirmation to making good choices.
Many films emulating life-like AI have come before. BLADE RUNNER, TERMINATOR, A.I. or even something as broad as AVATAR, follow some of the same plot points. Of course, there are countless other films that touch on the topics and themes that I could list, but just know it’s a popular genre that I happen to like quite a bit. Even with that said, THE CREATOR, while not completely original, finds some unique thoughts and action into the genre. It’s refreshing to have at the very least new quality material on the topic that feels more relevant every day.
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