The Creator – Film Review

Director – Gareth Edwards
Writers – Gareth Edwards, Chris Weitz
Stars – John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan

The year is 2062 and it finally happened! Those friendly A.I. devices who clean our houses and drive our cars turned out to be not so nice after all and nuked Los Angeles, instantly vaporizing one million people. In response, America has banned all A.I. and started to eradicate them from the rest of the world. To do this, they’re using Nomad, an armed space station that orbits the planet, attacking from above.

Our main protagonist is Joshua (John David Washington). When we meet him, he’s in the arms of a rebel on the side of the A.I. by the name of Maya (Gemma Chan).  Joshua was working as a spy but has gone native and fallen in love with Maya and she’s pregnant with his child. When the rebel base is attacked, Maya disappears and is presumed dead. This sends Joshua into a grief spiral but he is offered hope when a military team finds evidence that Maya might still be alive. He returns in the hope of finding her.

So, as you can see above, there is a lot of story, most of it taking place before the film really starts. It’s like we missed the prequel and came straight in at part two. You can throw into the mix a small girl called Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) who may or may not be the robot Messiah, and you have all the plot it requires!

The most surprising thing about this film is the budget. At a mere $80 million, it’s a fraction of what the average Marvel movie costs. The latest Marvel release, called The Marvels has a budget of $274.8 million, so less than half. This film takes inspiration from films like Bladerunner and the Children of Men to create a dark vision of the future. As the trailer will show you, it looks great and it has some impressive ideas and concepts on the world of the future.

The writer/ director of the film is Gareth Edwards, who is known to most for Rogue One (2016) and Godzilla (2014). He has a long history of creating sci-fi epics and the art department has really outdone itself on this one.

While the look and feel of this film are quite dazzling, what lets it down is the story. It holds together for most of the film but becomes quite formulaic and flimsy towards the end. You’ll be picking apart the plot holes on your way out of the cinema! It’s billed as an insightful commentary on AI in our world, but it’s hard to even know what opinion that is. While it does have its flaws, if you’re a sci-fi fan, you’re unlikely to miss it. For an $80 million film, it’s money well spent on a very impressive vision of the future. It’s just a pity the plot wasn’t a bit more complete to make this a stone-cold classic!