Gareth Edwards’ ambitious and visually striking AI parable “The Creator” is a mashup of familiar elements from so many science fiction and war movies that we’re tempted to say it actually could have been written by AI. But I’m not sure artificial intelligence is capable of creating such a shamelessly schmaltzy, cornball script that at times makes Michael Bay’s films feel subtle by comparison.
This is a great-looking but strange and mostly unsuccessful hybrid of futuristic sci-fi thrillers and Vietnam War films that combines elements of everything from “District 9” to “Blade Runner” to “Ex Machina” to the “Terminator” franchise to the likes of “Apocalypse Now,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Platoon,” and is filled with head-scratching plot developments and some truly questionable dramatic choices.
As we learn from a newsreel-style prologue, humans and their robot companions were getting along just fine until the year 2055, when an atomic blast claimed the lives of nearly 1 million residents of Los Angeles and destroyed much of the city. The U.S. government banned all AI technology in the West and built a $1 trillion spaceship dubbed NOMAD to roam the East, aka New Asia, dropping bombs on any locales where humans and AI beings continued to co-exist, with the goal of eradicating AI from the planet. (There is no concern whatsoever about the mass slaughter of men, women and children along with the humanoid robots. Some of these sequences recall the real-life bombings of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and are jarring and borderline offensive.)
After a stunning and violent and confusing raid sequence set in the year 2065, we flash forward another five years and catch up with John David Washington’s Joshua (biblical name alert!), a former undercover Special Ops soldier for the U.S. military who has an artificial arm and leg and is haunted by visions of that raid, in which his pregnant wife, Maya, (Gemma Chan) and unborn child were killed. When U.S. military brass including the hardcore, warmongering Col. Howell (the great Allison Janney, miscast here) approach Joshua about leading them to the hideout of the godlike inventor of AI known as Nirmata — because Joshua was oh-so-close to finding Nirmata before tragedy struck — he wants no part of it. Until they show him evidence Maya might still be alive, and the mission could also lead him to his beloved dead wife. (We know she’s beloved because we get flashback sequences of them frolicking on the beach.)
With impressively staged battle scenes lighting up the screen along the way, Joshua defies all odds and locates Nirmata’s key invention, an advanced AI weapon that has the form of a 6-year-old girl he names Alphie (played by an adorable Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Like most of the AI beings, Alphie looks exactly like a human, save for the whirling gears near the back of her head. Alphie is an adorable moppet who often sounds like your typical Movie Kid — but she also has incredible powers that she is just learning to harness. Let’s just say when Alphie holds her hands in a prayer-like gesture, stuff is about to get real.
As Joshua goes on the run with Alphie and gets to know the “Sims” (for Simulants) of New Asia — including Ken Watanabe’s Harun, the obligatory Wise and Noble Warrior/Commander — he becomes increasingly sympathetic to the AI population. They don’t want war with the humans, they just want to co-exist with them! Alphie is more than just a weapon, she’s a real girl! If only the Americans would stop invading Vietnam …
You get the idea. And if you don’t, the screenplay will hammer it home with yet another schmaltzy scene making sure we understand the true villains here are the bomb-crazed, duplicitous military leaders, and the good guys are the robots and their human friends.
Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Chris Weitz, the talented Edwards (“Monsters,” “Godzilla,” “Rogue One”) creates a unique cinematic world by shooting first in real-world locations (with the brilliant cinematographers Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer) and then enlisting the services of the legendary Industrial Light & Magic artists to add the amazing and often gorgeous CGI. The result is an $80 million film that frankly looks more “real” and pops on screen in more impressive fashion than many of the Marvel and DC movies that cost much more.
Unfortunately, “The Creator” falls short of its admirable reach on a number of levels, including John David Washington’s limited-range lead performance, which feels flat and then forced and never achieves iconic anti-hero status; some truly cringe-inducing dialogue; and an almost unbearably sentimental ending for some of the main characters. “The Creator” is big on flashy spectacle but small on truly original ideas.
