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The Creator -- a review

The Creator was directed by Gareth Edwards, who also directed the superb Monsters; the somewhat annoying 2014 Godzilla (which was pretty good--when you could actually SEE the Big G), and the excellent Star Wars film Rogue One. The Creator takes place midway through the 21st century, when the United States suffers a devastating blow when Los Angeles is destroyed by a nuclear weapon that was set off by an Artificial Intelligence. This prompts the US and its western allies to ban all AI worldwide. When New Asia, a newly formed state in Southeast Asia, refuses to cease using AI, along with its robotic constructs, this creates a war between them and the United States.

In 2070, Sergeant Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) of the US Army, goes into New Asia with a commando force to destroy a special weapon that had been created by the enemy forces. He’s also looking to see if he can find his wife, whom he thought had died five years before, but is now seen to be alive and working for the lab that created this special weapon. Much to his surprise, Taylor discovers that the “weapon” that the New Asian scientists were working on is a young girl, a robotic simulacrum, whom he names Alfie (and who’s very engagingly played by young Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

The Creator almost plays like a live action anime film, taking place as it does in Southeast Asia and deftly employing its culture within its outstanding futuristic production design. It’s also slightly similar to James Cameron’s first Avatar film in how Taylor here also goes “native” by disobeying his orders, but The Creator thankfully lacks the pretensions of the first Avatar: instead of making Taylor the God-like savior of an entire race, The Creator manages to make Taylor heroic by giving him the more realistic goal of protecting Alfie at all costs. John David Washington, who was previously seen in Christopher Nolan’s trippy Tenet, gives a sturdy performance here as Taylor. And Allison Janney is also very good as Colonel Howell, the leader of the commando team who has a very good reason to hate the New Asian AI and its robots. The special effects are flawless, easily blending exotic science fiction buildings and tech in with the natural surroundings, and the sheer creativity on display in this film is truly wondrous to see. They take fantastical SF notions and give them a practicality that makes it seem very real.

The only nitpick I have with The Creator is the opening, where jagged editing makes jumping between timelines a bit confusing. But once the film settles into its main storyline, all is well--save for some plot holes. But despite its flaws, The Creator is worth seeing just for being so visually stunning. Star Trek and Star Wars are the 800 pound gorillas of science fiction in the cinema and on television--and I love them both--but I also always enjoyed the independent science fiction projects that try to dig deeper into the human condition, like 2001, Blade Runner, and even recent SF films like Blade Runner 2049, and Ad Astra. The Creator is the latest of these worthy SF films, and while its plot holes keep it from being a completely perfect film, it’s still highly recommended as being a nice addition to the growing list of non-franchise science fiction films.

The Creator is available on physical media and streaming.

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