Movie Review: 'The Creator'

The Creator (2023)

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Written by Gareth Edwards, Chris Weitz

Starring John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, Allison Janney

Release Date September 29th, 2023

Published October 2nd, 2023

The Creator stars John David Washington as Joshua Taylor. Make note of that biblical name, it means something. Joshua is a double agent of the future. In this future world, A.I was built to make life easier for Americans. That worked until the A.I got too real and decided to nuke Los Angeles. Some time after that, America has banned A.I and is at war with New Asia, a country that has become a haven for A.I living in among the human population as equals. Joshua is a spy who was tasked with getting close to Maya (Gemma Chan), who is believed to be the daughter of the Nirmata, the A.I creator.

Nirmata, we are told, has been working on a weapon that could turn the tide of the war between America and New Asia. This new A.I weapon is evolving quickly and will carry the ability to destroy non-A.I technology, like that used by the U.S military. Joshua's assignment works better than expected as not only does he get close to Maya, the two fall in love and Maya gets pregnant. That's when things hit the fan as the Americans decide to attack without warning Joshua first. In the attack, it appears that Maya and the rest of Joshua's band of A.I brothers, are killed.

Returning to America, Joshua takes a crappy job and appears ready to spend the rest of his life guiltily drinking himself to death. That's when he's approached by General Andrews (Ralph Ineson) and Colonel Howell (Allison Janney). They have proof that Maya is still alive and they want Joshua to go to New Asia on a mission to reconnect with her and by extension, get close to the new A.I weapon so that it can be destroyed before it evolves to destroy the American military. That's the plan anyway, these things in movies tend to fall apart and fall apart they do.

When Joshua does get inside the A.I headquarters in New Asia he is shocked to find that the A.I weapon is a child. Alphie, as Josh calls the child, is a simulant who was been created to evolve and learn quickly how to disable non A.I tech. If Alphie is allowed to continue to learn and grow, they will eventually be able to destroy America's greatest weapon, a giant airship that drops laser guided nukes. Thus, Joshua arrives at a crossroads, does he do his job and destroy the weapon or does he rescue and protect this vulnerable young child robot who looks and acts like a 9 year old girl.

The biblical Joshua was the successor to Moses as the leader of the people of Israel. He is described as a charismatic warrior who led Israel to the conquest of Canaan, thus establishing a new home for the Jewish people. Joshua in The Creator is also a charismatic warrior and he will become a leader to A.I people. Where he ends up leading them would, I guess, be a spoiler for The Creator. It's a not straight, one to one comparison between the biblical Joshua and the movie Joshua, but like so much of The Creator, the name Joshua carries a lot of meaning and weight that is otherwise lacking from the rest of the movie.

The message is extraordinarily basic, war bad, accepting people who are different is good. I feel like I am being unfair, that is, after all, a good message. It's just that the movie seems to think it is more meaningful than that and I didn't find any deeper meaning. And, frankly, it's a rather empty message in a movie that thrives on the demonstration of war. Both the A.I and the American military look cool while they are fighting. They have cool weapons and the A.I, whose side we are clearly on, are brave and humble while the evil American military are evil because they kill everything. It's basic.

It's almost childlike in its simplicity and yet deeply pretentious in presentation. The Creator has the hallmarks something that aspires to be deep and meaningful but is empty at the core. Part of that comes from star John David Washington's flat, blank performance. Washington's Joshua is so singleminded in purpose that he never becomes a character. He seems to care about the child by the end but Washington's performance is short on human qualities. Joshua plays like a function of the plot and not like a desperate man on a life altering quest to change the world.

The rest of The Creator suffers due to Washington's less than stellar performance. It's beginning to seem like directors don't know what to do with Washington. His performances in action movies all have the same sort of blank slate emptiness. Washington appears to be an actor who needs a strong handed director to get the most out of him. For instance, Spike Lee in Blackkklansman who got a great performance out of Washington. Say what you will about writer-director Sam Levinson, he also got a great performance out of Washington in his movie Malcolm and Marie, and it's because both Lee and Levinson, in their unique own way, are directors who have a strong vision and demand actors deliver on that vision.

Gareth Edwards is not a strong director of actors. In his career, he's shown himself to be a strong technical director who relies heavily on his actors to bring dimension to his characters while he focuses on the mechanics of movie spectacle. This is true of even his low budget debut, the much loved Monsters which thrived on two terrific actors and Edwards' technical chops that convinced you of the existence of large monsters while not having the budget to actually give you big monsters. Edwards then went fully into spectacle on Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

The Creator simply has the wrong combination of actor and director. The spectacle is mostly on point, the CGI is relatively flawless, the action is directed with a strong hand. The emotional elements however, are very simplistic, as is the supposed deeper themes of the movie which rely heavily on implied biblical meanings. There is also a hint of a father and child relationship between Joshua and Alphie but that doesn't get much depth or build. Gemma Chan is there and then gone from the movie very quickly. She functions as a motivator for Washington's character and little more.

The Creator is a disappointment. It's pretentious, simplistic and pretty to look at. Gareth Edwards is a tremendous carpenter, he crafts movies well. But in focusing on the architecture, he loses the human element that separates a well made movie from a truly great movie. The Creator may look flawless but it's entirely on the surface. There is nothing underneath the neat robots and the massive machinery of war. It's all very spectacular to look but it's an empty thrill.

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