Ideally, I’d like to think that directors who bring a level of artistry and sophistication to mainstream studio blockbusters will be rewarded with the chance to realize their own unique visions in original productions, but that’s not really the way Hollywood works right now.
A director like Gareth Edwards, who followed up his excellent 2010 small-scale sci-fi debut “Monsters” with big-budget franchise movies “Godzilla” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” should have reached new heights with his subsequent original film “The Creator.”
Instead, “The Creator” debuted to mixed reviews and middling box-office results, and Edwards is headed back to the franchise trenches for his next film, “Jurassic World Rebirth.” With “The Creator” now streaming on Prime Video, I hope audiences who passed it by in theaters or in its initial home viewing window will give it another chance.
"The Creator" is one of the most visually striking, thematically ambitious sci-fi movies of the past decade, with strong performances and some awe-inspiring set pieces. Even when taking its flaws into account, it’s an impressive achievement that deserves wider appreciation.
‘The Creator’ is timely, smart sci-fi
Set in 2065, “The Creator” takes place in an alternate timeline where robots were integrated into daily life starting in what looks like the 1950s, and artificial intelligence was further developed in the subsequent decades, placing intelligent androids alongside humans in every area of society. Edwards immediately demonstrates his keen eye for detail with the convincing vintage-style news reports that efficiently illustrate the history of AI, right up until an AI-initiated nuclear detonation in Los Angeles that kills nearly 1 million people.
That seamless world-building is a hallmark of “The Creator,” which then cuts to a decade later in the midst of a long and grueling war between the United States, where AI was immediately banned, and the amalgamated nation known as New Asia, where “simulants” have flourished alongside human residents.
U.S. military operative Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) has gone way off-book in his assignment to surveil Maya Fey (Gemma Chan), who has alleged ties to the mysterious AI inventor known as Nirmata. Rather than shadow her from afar, he’s fallen in love with her, and they’re now married with a child on the way.
The debate over AI in “The Creator” is not the same as the real-life debate over generative AI, but it raises timely philosophical questions while taking on a topic that has been a sci-fi staple for decades. Even though he’s gotten intimately involved with Maya, Joshua remains staunchly anti-AI until firsthand encounters begin to change his mind. Maya is killed in a botched raid by Joshua’s military teammates, and five years later he’s still a haunted shell, working a menial job cleaning up the irradiated wreckage of Los Angeles.
The mix of beauty and technology makes ‘The Creator’ succeed
Joshua is lured back into military life by the promise that Maya is actually still alive, working with the elusive Nirmata. A gruff, hardened colonel (Allison Janney) offers Joshua the chance to reunite with Maya if he will help her track down Nirmata’s secret base and the doomsday weapon that Nirmata has been developing. What he finds, though, is that the supposed deadly device is actually a simulant child that Joshua nicknames Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).
Although it’s set in a relatively dystopian future, “The Creator” is always gorgeous to look at, and Edwards brings the same eye for lived-in detail that he demonstrated in his franchise movies to this newly created world. The robots in “The Creator” are not the homicidal menaces of movies like “The Terminator,” but often working-class, empathetic figures whose inner emotional lives are never in question.
Whether Joshua is making his way through a city, traveling through the wilderness, or entering a temple staffed by simulant monks, Edwards grounds the sci-fi in tactile details, which gives it a sense of reality. “The Creator” was shot in actual locations with digital effects added in later, and that makes a massive difference in immersing the audience in the environments and communities, in a way that studio-bound productions using green screens or LED volume walls just can’t manage.
Edwards is also interested in emotional beauty, and Joshua’s mission is always driven by personal connection rather than abstract political goals. He’s motivated by his enduring love for Maya, and over time he bonds with Alphie as well, understanding the complexity of AI existence.
The finale of “The Creator” gets a bit too sappy, but overall Edwards strikes an effective balance between heady futuristic ideas and character-driven relationships. It’s the kind of intelligent, expansive storytelling that studios should be developing and championing — and still could.
