MOVIE REVIEW: The Creator (2023)

I have always had a love/hate relationship with production art books. They’re an invaluable tool for learning the process of how the visuals were made, and the reasoning behind the creative decisions. On the flip-side, they’re prohibitively expensive. So imagine when a Star Wars alum decided to make a movie using still images pulled directly from the concept art about the movie he’s making. It ends up being a visual masterpiece made on the cheap, and that fact never shows! The movie in question is the latest original sci-fi film called The Creator, directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters [2010], Godzilla [2014], Rogue One: A Star Wars Story).

As if to take a page from the fear-mongering about AI in current media discourse, humanity in the mid-21st Century suffers at the hands of AI technology in an obvious misstep: the people that handed over nukes to military AI never watched 1984’s The Terminator and a nuke was launched and detonated in Los Angeles. America banned AI on its own soil, swore to never let that happen again…and would wage war wherever AI would be found. The rest of the world has changed outside of that incident, as many of the countries on the Asian continent have joined to become “New Asia” and have a wholly different stance on AI: they love AI and choose to coexist with this new species on Earth. They even accept the worship of the AI’s god-like creator called “Nirmata” (translated from the Nepalese as “godlike creator”). America doesn’t like this and clearly states to the people of New Asia they are NOT at war with them…only the AI enemies they harbor.

Enter US Army soldier Joshua (John David Washington, TENET, Black KKKlansman), assigned to infiltrate the AI threat many years after losing his parents (and an arm and leg) to the LA nuke. He is assigned to honeypot Maya (Gemma Chan, “Humans” [TV-AMC], Eternals, Transformers: the Last Knight), who is the daughter of the AI master “Nirmata”. He succeeds in marrying and getting her pregnant, but the undercover mission continues. The mission is foiled in 2065 when US Army Special Forces screw it all up and Maya seemingly dies at the hands of the mobile orbital weapons platform called NOMAD, an American version of the Death Star from Star Wars. Here, Joshua goes into a depression and becomes a recluse until Colonel Howell (Allison Janney, “Mom” [TV-CBS], Finding Nemo) and General Andrews (Ralph Ineson, Brahms: The Boy II, The Green Knight [2021]) call him back to duty to find Maya who’s not dead.

Joshua watching over Alphie as she continues to endear herself to the audience.

Joshua immediately accepts the chance to find his wife and travels to New Asia to infiltrate a secret lab where Nirmata built a weapon to win the war for AI. His mission is to destroy the weapon, but when Joshua finds the weapon in a vault, it’s in the form of an android child (newcomer actress Madeleine Yuna Voyles). The small-framed AI is so convincing as a human child (it ignores Joshua’s commands and watches anime non-stop) that Joshua can’t just kill “her” outright and names her “Alphie”. Soon after, the search-and-destroy mission goes south and leaves Joshua to protect Alphie from the greater world — a world she’s never seen before because she’s never been outside.

Our little robot Buddha-baby Alphie enjoys the community of people in the world, experiencing joy.

There are others in New Asia that would see the android child safely with them, namely the AI freedom fighter Harun (Ken Watanabe, Tampopo, The Last Samurai, Inception) and the entire civilian populace of New Asia — meaning everybody’s an enemy. It will take a lot of applied survival skills (and deep emotional introspection) to make it to the end of this film, and I hope it leaves you wondering with a LOT of questions.

There’s a lot of Tibetan and Buddhist-style design throughout the centers of worship for Nirmata (AKA the Creator).

The Creator lovingly took its time creating a detailed world that is “lived in”, with its angular tech cities living side-by-side with ergonomic natural forms and other analog environments. The androids pray with rosaries before funeral pyres, and their temples feature bald android monks in saffron robes and the type of design styles found in Buddhist temples…but with robot/android subjects. The hopes and dreams of the androids achieving spirituality and living normal lives among humans gave me life; it was so beautiful. Speaking of the beauty of this world, I fell in love with its sound design. The rumbling of pregnant stormy skies and the quiet birdsong among rustling trees was just as important as the bustling urban centers and chaotic war zones. The sound was so good, I thought I could smell the ozone in the stormy air and feel life on the streets shown.

One thing is in question among all this beauty: the intentions of the filmmakers.

I have to say this movie is schizophrenic in its intent, because one minute it’s cribbing designs from nearly every Asian-inspired cyberpunk visual design in sincere flattery, then doubling down on Vietnam War hate-porn against Asian people and their beliefs. All the Americans needed was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” as they flew over the rice paddies. I understand visually evoking the Vietnam War for this film’s conflict was easy, but it was unnecessary. It was hard to watch at points because of the near-constant dehumanization, but it won me over in the end. Take the time to watch it, but do not bring your children.

CHOICE CUTS (spoilers ahead):

• The Creator is a VFX movie masterpiece that cost nearly US$100 million to make. Not only did the film’s crew make all the VFX under US$100 million, they actually put in the effort for typography on chapter plates, which I appreciate as a designer and a movie-goer. The cost of any other Hollywood movies (sequels, prequels, re-imaginings, and franchise sequels) with worse VFX reaching upward of US$200 million no longer makes any sense, and all financials regarding future film productions and marketing campaigns must be investigated for malfeasance and fraud.
• Alpha and Omega — the beginning and the end: The symbolism here is on multiple levels. New technology like Alphie (based on the Alpha Omega symbols found on her memory ring) caused this war and Alphie will end the war. Oddly enough, this whole thing with Alphie started because Joshua (the destroyer/Omega) and Maya (the creator/Alpha) married and conceived. Joshua would be asked to come back to his destroyer position several times throughout the movie, and every time he chooses the role. Doesn’t mean he follows through, which is how life has another chance from death…and the movie persists.
• And just like that, Gemma Chan is an artificial being once again.
• The US Army bomb-bots were awesome and polite. But when I heard them runnin’, I was like “AW LAWD HE COMIN’”
• The US Army mega-tanks were so big, they looked like Tau Hammerhead gunships from Warhammer 40,000 with tank treads and their own postal code.
• Allison Janney’s character Colonel Howell has been compared to Stephen Lang’s Commander Quaritch from 2009’s Avatar, but I disagree. Quaritch never made me want to vomit due to his war crimes. Colonel Howell did have a compelling backstory: if that happened to me, I would put holes in every android and robot I saw. The tears streaming down her face and the reaction from her subordinates was powerful acting on all parts.
• I need all US Army gear in the future to come equipped with a quick-release switch or slide catch; they might have actually won if they had one.

NOMAD: our very own Death Star but it’s unknown whether the station is American or under United Nations control, if the UN still exists in this universe.

• NOMAD was a big ball of questions: What was the purpose of the robo-spider? Why have an entire sector of your weapons platform dedicated to a three-level greenhouse visible from outside? What does their “A.I. Research” department consist of? Why didn’t the station retract their docking port after pulling all the civilians off the lunar shuttle? Would ALL of Europe, South America, or Africa stand with America in banning AI or are they next for American pre-emptive orbital attacks against AI terrorists? Did the UN members sign off on a mobile weapons platform for use against “terrorists”? Are they OK with NOMAD’s weapons being used against them, if they fall under the definition of terrorists (whenever it suits the other signatories)?
• The scenes where the minds of the deceased were scanned and placed into an android’s memory core reminded of Netflix’s “Altered Carbon” TV series when they would swap cortical stacks into new sleeves and spin them up into the world to live again.
• Maya aka “Nirmata” built an android that can grow (how??) and implanted the memories of her unborn child into it, technically making Alfie Joshua’s AI child. That’s some incredible sci-fi magic in this live action anime.
• I wonder if the war with AI would have happened if mankind had never designed AI to do its dirty work of policing and fighting wars.
• …And now I’m adding a rule about artificial intelligence: PLEASE DO NOT HAND OVER YOUR MILITARY WEAPONS TO AI CONTROL. We literally had an entire movie franchise about this.
• The role of “Nirmata” is handed down from parent to child (Maya’s dad to Maya, then Maya to Alphie). It’s not one person or AI — it’s all of them.
• Can we talk about the android factory in New Asia? That was weird to see the androids watching themselves be built while working women smoke and laugh as they build them in production lathes.
• Harun’s commentary about the LA nuke incident coming down to human coding error made me wonder: since Colonel Howell’s son was lured to his death by lying AI, could Harun have been lying to justify Joshua’s execution? Or did humans screw up that badly?
• The NOMAD orbital weapons platform reminds me so much of the Tet from 2013’s Oblivion, ever floating in the sky and a symbol of Earth’s doom.
• When Alphie finds the android with Maya’s donated face under the plastic sheeting, I was reminded of 1987’s Cherry 2000.
• Alphie being the key to a weapon now reminds me of the plot of the 1986 Masaune Shirow anime Appleseed…OK —

Ngô Thanh Vân plays Kami, whose Cyberpunk 2077-inspired facial seams work well.

• Kami, an android character played by Vietnamese actress-singer Ngô Thanh Vân (Star Wars: the Last Jedi, “Bright” [TV-Netflix]) was interesting as her character’s role in the plot contradicted the words of Joshua’s teammate Drew (Sturgill Simpson). Drew specifically told Joshua not to go “native”, but Drew didn’t hold himself to the same ideals and fell in love with an android.
• That said, Kami’s facial seams come straight out of Cyberpunk 2077…hey waitaminit —
• The relationship of Joshua and Alfie as protector and charge reminds me of 1986’s The Golden Child, especially how Alfie is a little bald Buddha-child — alright, stop.
• For a movie that has no attachment as a sequel, prequel, re-imagining, or franchise, it sure borrows a lot from pop culture and modern history to a noticeably distracting degree. It’s like the most awesome collage ever.