The Creator (2023, Dir. Gareth Edwards)
Synopsis:
After a nuclear explosion that devastates L.A. is blamed on A.I., humanity turns against all forms of synthetic intelligence and wages war against them in Asia where A.I. is still predominant and where the god-like leader of A.I, Nirmata, is supposed to reside. Sergeant Taylor (John David Washington), who is still traumatized from a botched infiltration mission that killed his wife Maya (Gemma Chan) and their unborn child, is sent back to Asia to guide a new team on a mission to destroy a newly developed weapon that has the potential to win the war for A.I. However, when Taylor discovers that the weapon is in fact a synthetic child who has the power to control other technology, he is forced to question everything he thought he believed and which side he’s on.
My love for thought-provoking sci-fi should now be well established with regular readers of this blog. For me, the genre’s ability to take themes and topics relevant today and explore scenarios that look either in hope or fear at their possible outcomes is why the genre constantly manages to keep itself fresh and interesting and Gareth Edwards’ latest film is brilliant example of this.
Can a film be considered “underrated” if it does fairly well at the box office and the criticism of it is mixed but largely positive? In this case I think it can. Whilst mostly well received on its release, with many critics praising the film’s visuals, there was also a certain amount of criticism about the story’s borrowing from other films such as Apocalypse Now, District 9, Blade Runner, Ex-Machina and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. It’s certainly true that some of the film’s themes have been explored in other films, but to criticize the film as derivative is unfair, in my opinion. Edwards was upfront about the influence some of the above mentioned films and some comparison was always going to be unavoidable. What film of people trying to get across a war-torn landscape in Asia is not going to invite comparison with Apocalypse Now or Vietnam films in general? What film that questions whether humanity solely belongs to humans will not evoke memories of Blade Runner and others that have dealt with the same question? One of sci-fi’s defining features as a genre is its ability to borrow, magpie-like, from other genres and other pre-existing stories and refashion them into something new. Blade Runner itself borrowed heavily from the film noir stories of Hammett and Chandler. So, yes: some of the moments in The Creator may remind you of other stories – that’s neither something negative or something unusual in sci-fi as a whole.
Edwards’ debut film, Monsters, brilliantly managed to convey an extraordinarily epic sense of scale on a relatively modest budget, through filming in an almost documentary style on location and then using his visual effects background to add in the sci-fi elements later. After directing the Godzilla remake, followed by Rogue One (to my mind, still the best of the recent crop of Star Wars films), The Creator marks a return to similar type of story, albeit with a more substantial budget, this time around. Like, Monsters, it too was shot on location with prosumer cameras, enabling Edwards to work in a quasi-documentary style, using a small crew and natural locations and lighting where appropriate. The result is a very tactile form of futurism – one that not only ends up looking far more epic and expensive than it actually was, but also with a layer of realism that adds to the illusion.
The film’s look is absolutely stunning and, to me, whilst the film’s visual fx and sound were both rightly nominated for Oscars in 2024, (sadly losing out to Godzilla Minus One and Zone Of Interest, respectively) its cinematography should have been as well. The film’s two directors of photography Greig Fraser (whose work on Denis Viellenevue’s two Dune films has been well praised and who also shot Rogue One for Edwards) and Oren Soffer, create a plethora of stunning imagery, which is then seamlessly enhanced by visual fx, giving the viewer an incredibly immersive sense of the futuristic world that’s been created. I watched the film with my 14 year old daughter, who like most teenagers today is quite blasé about visuals in films because they know anything is possible with CGI, yet even she was impressed with the film’s look.
As impressive as the film’s visuals are, it’s not just empty spectacle and there’s great performances from both John David Washington (who has much more chance to show depth of emotion here, than he did in Tenet) and Alison Janney (who almost steals the film, cast against type as the ruthless Colonel Howell on Taylor and Alphie’s trail). However, the film’s best performance is provided by young Madeleine Yuna Voyles as the synthetic child, Alphie, embodying a worldliness far beyond her years, mixed with a child-like innocence which is absolutely captivating and believable.
Despite my love of his scores and my usual ability to spot his work after hearing only a few bars, I didn’t really notice Hans Zimmer’s score in the movie – perhaps because of its relatively subtlety, in comparison to his work on the likes of Oppenheimer and Dune Part Two in the same year – but also, I suspect, because (at least in the film’s first half) the score is often overshadowed by the use of songs. Certainly, the film’s use of Radiohead’s Everything In It’s Right Place over Taylor and the team’s flight to the hidden A.I. factory is the best use of that song in a movie or tv show since Vanilla Sky.
Ultimately, whilst some of the ingredients of the story might seem familiar, Edwards manages to create enough new twists and incredible visuals that you can forgive any moments where the plot gives way to predictability. Like the very best science fiction, this gives a detailed glimpse into a possible future. With debate about the uses of A.I. continuing to grow, the film has an extra level of resonance that it might not have had, if it had been released a few years ago, but beyond that, this is simply stunning filmmaking that deserves to be seen for no other reason than its incredible level of world building and some brilliant performances. Hunt it down.
