AI, huh? What is it good for? Or bad for, even? Absolutely nuthin’, apparently, according to The Creator, which is ostensibly about artificial intelligence and humanity’s relationship with it, and yet is utterly uninterested in engaging with the concept on any level. At all. It’s a baffling stance for a science-fiction movie about AI to take.
It’s the late 21st century here, and meatbag people have been at war with robot people for a decade, since the robot people nuked Los Angeles. You’d think if the robot people wanted to actually wipe out the meatbag people, as some meatbag people seem to believe is the situation, they’d have done it already, what with the robot people having some sort of access to nuclear weapons and all. And yet this has not happened. Skynet’s Judgment Day is either not in the cards or not possible.
I call the AIs of The Creator robot people because they are virtually indistinguishable from the meatbag people — that is, the organic humans — in every way. Some of the robot people look like humans with some mechanical stuff at the back of their heads. Some of the robot people are full-metal androids with Crow T. Robot heads, but they also wear human clothes for some reason. And if any of the robot people behave differently from humans or think differently from humans, there’s no hint of it here. If there are AIs who aren’t people, say, superintelligent consciousnesses existing on the Internet, there’s no hint of it.
The Creator makes no attempt to grapple with the possibilities, either positive or negative, of artificial intelligence. We don’t even have real AIs today, but the nonconscious, not-actually-thinking computer programs we do have that some people are erroneously calling AI are already making themselves hugely disruptive. No such disruption is apparent in the world of The Creator. Instead, its AIs serve a purpose all too familiar in lazy stories that borrow sci-fi tropes: they are a racialized Other in a clunky metaphor for bigotry. Writer, with Chris Weitz (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Cinderella), and director Gareth Edwards leans way into that by positing that “New Asia” (suggesting perhaps a unified Asia? it’s definitely a culturally flattened one) is fine with AI, so this part of the world is where all the robot people exist, which is why the ones who look human look Asian; one is played by the always brilliant Ken Watanabe (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu). (There are AI Buddhist monks here! What sort of philosophies do they have? Who knows!) And the meat people who are at war with the robot people appear to be exclusively those of the United States of America. Which allows Edwards the opportunity to invoke Apocalypse Now as futuristic US army tanks and smart bombs with legs (robot not-people) attack villages full of Asian farmers and peasants, some of whom are robots.
Among all the Orientalism, Edwards does find one slight innovation: he takes the white out of the hackneyed white savior with his protagonist, Joshua (John David Washington: Tenet), so we get a Western savior who is Black. A former soldier and undercover operative once in search of “the Creator [of AIs],” he is persuaded to rejoin the anti-AI forces because his wife, Maya (Gemma Chan: Raya and the Last Dragon, Captain Marvel), whom he saw bombed and had presumed was dead, might still be alive and working with the AIs in New Asia. (Yup, yet another dead wife motivating a male protagonist. Clichés rarely exist in isolation.) Now the job is to take out the superweapon the AIs are developing, which supposedly has the power to destroy humanity. When Joshua discovers that the weapon is a robot kid (newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles), whom he nicknames Alphie, he goes rogue on his fellow meat people and decides she must be protected.
How can Alphie destroy humanity? What sort of powers does she have? For now, they manifest as a sort of techno-mystic ability to control computerized machines, either to turn them on or off… which you’d kinda think the AIs would already have. It is suggested that her powers are still growing, and that she will someday be able to take out the orbital platform the Americans are using to hunt and attack the robot people, but that wouldn’t seem to demand any particularly special powers. An ordinary meat-person’s nuke or EMP should do it…
The plot falls apart with the slightest of pokes. The framing broaches potentially intriguing notions, such as the vital importance of a singular Creator of AIs, yet never explores them. If the film is intended as a critique of American imperialism, it’s shockingly lacking, raising more questions than it can hope to answer: Isn’t this a war between not humans and AI but between the US and New Asia? How does a New Asia that has embraced AI not squash the US like a dumb bug? (Why are the AIs seemingly no smarter than humans?) The characters are not particularly engaging, nor do they engage much in the way of empathy, adorable-robot moppetness aside. This is deeply unfair on the cast, who deserve better; Allison Janney (Bad Education, Ma) as a US army colonel is at least having fun getting her Ellen Ripley on.
At best — and this is a limited best — The Creator is a successful exercise in production design. The film looks great: Edwards shot in real locations, eschewing green screens, with blobs of sci-fi-ness added digitally later. But those blobs of sci-fi-ness — mechanical temples; strange structures looming on distant horizons (perhaps arcologies?) — are nothing but set dressing; they don’t mean anything. It’s so incredibly frustrating. What is any of this for?
Gareth Edwards’s first movie was a shot-by-the-seat-of-his-pants alien flick called Monsters, which was smart and fun and innovative. He directed what might be the best Star Wars movie yet, the bitter, cynical Rogue One. He also directed the pretty-good 2014 Godzilla reboot. With all of these movies, he took familiar ideas and walked well-trod paths but somehow made them feel fresh. So what the hell happened here?
I think the worst thing for me, as a huge geek and a lifelong fan of science fiction, is when a “science fiction” movie ends up nothing of the sort. And I am willing to grade on an extremely generous curve. I will cling to even the slightest bit of speculative extrapolation in order to get my sci-fi fix. I got no such sweet dorky hit from The Creator.
more films like this:
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV | Paramount+ US | MGM+ US | Paramount+ UK | BFI Player UK]
• District 9 [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV | Max US | Netflix UK]
Seems like another example of an old, old problem – science fiction movies done by people who don’t actually know much about science fiction. Who then come in and treat questions that actual SF writers have been grappling with since the 1930s (if not earlier) as if they’re new and exciting concepts for the 21st century.
But for anyone remotely familiar with SF, ideas like “What if we had robot people?” aren’t new and exciting by themselves. Heck, just looking at “widely acclaimed films from the last 50 years” alone, you’d need to at least acknowledge that Blade Runner dealt with these concepts?
Also, this situation appears to confirm what shouldn’t be too shocking a notion – that Star Wars and Godzilla, while enormously fun, are generally speaking only “SF-adjacent” when it comes to being even semi-serious as speculative fiction.
For example, looking at Godzilla vs Kong, it dealt briefly with the idea of a rebellious AI when the dead kaiju brain of King Ghidorah took control of Mechagodzilla (meant to be friend to humans!) This idea was dealt with in brief dialogue and visuals that were basically gibberish as speculative fiction. Which is totally fine! We don’t need, or especially want, Godzilla movies to seriously engage with ideas about conflicts between human and artificial intelligence. We watch them to watch big monsters hitting each other, and the movie delivered that admirably.
I went into this knowing it was written/directed by the same team that made Rogue One, which I consider an unintentional camp classic. It’s super weird that SW fans love it unironically. Forest Whitaker’s character alone had me wheezing in the theater, as did Donnie Yen’s nonsensical typecasting. I still chuckle a bit whenever I hear an “earnest” speech about “Hope.” Anyway, as a result, I expected even more accidentally hilarious, deep as a puddle, outdated sci-fi nonsense and was not disappointed.
The essential problem is that Edwards thinks visually rather than narratively (Besson and Villeneuve also come to mind) which is fine for fantasy, but an awful fit for hard scifi. Edwards is incredibly talented – as the review points out, this is a well shot movie with gorgeous isolated moments, most are inspired by better films – a bit of LotR, some Aliens, A.I., District 9, a whole bunch of Avatar (okay, maybe not all better). Sadly, the writing and world building were hastily conceived in service to these dramatic visual set pieces with absolutely no thought given to rudimentary logic or consequences.
When the covert infiltration team was walking in plain view with their spotlight headlamps on maximum intensity, I couldn’t help but giggle and softy sing “Don’t Be Suspicious, Don’t Beee Suspicious.” Advanced A.I. indistinguishable from humans? You got it, piece of cake, mastered it decades ago. Night Vision Goggles!? What is this sorcery you speak of?
The lack of surveillance technology in a country that has embraced A.I. (not just any country either, paragon of paranoia, “China” in spirit if not in name) is another glaring oversight among countless others. We’re meant to believe that totally not-China is unable to track not only the movement of people, but also those of an enormous space-station/aerial platform (its operating altitudes are fluctuating and ambiguous) that shoots fricking laser walls out of its nether regions at all times.
It’s the standard mainstream action trope, “just don’t think too much, come on it’s a giant, motherfucking tank/spaceship/missile – so badass!” As the review states, the trope more painful in scifi because the genre is about thoughtfully answering an interesting “what if” question. Scifi without thought, intelligence, or logic is just reskinned fantasy (*cough* Star Wars) – it’s like trying to make an omelette without any eggs. At least Star Wars has some degree of internal consistency, expansive worldbuilding, and compelling characters – here, even these basic non-scifi-specific ingredients are missing.
Unfortunately, one of two things is true: Either Edwards/Weitz have never read any scifi novels/short stories written in the last 100 years, as djconner suspects below, or even worse, they knew better, but intentionally wrote a stupid, shallow script to appeal to international and mainstream audiences. It’s probably closer to column A, because it feels as though the filmmakers are sincere, which makes the silliness of a man hanging on to the side of a giant nuclear cruise missile in spaaaace even more hilarious.
The movie, on the surface, is pro-“new Asia” (an oversimplification which is itself mildly racist) and anti-American military in a transparent attempt to pass PRC sensors. However, by making most of the asian characters symbolic ciphers devoid of personality and/or nameless running Vietnam War-ish civilian casualties, the apparent pro-Asian stance is undermined. All the important adult characters with any development/agency are non-Asian Americans – all two of them. Chan’s character is incredibly important, and we learn nothing about her or her work. Speaking of Blade Runner 2049, using the death of an asian woman character for motivation/foreshadowing twice is just lazy writing. If you want to foreshadow, please be subtle so that it’s only picked up in a second viewing, and try not to introduce women in one scene just so they can die in the next one so their boyfriends get a chance to emote.
John David Washington is okay, 70% of the way to being able to carry a blockbuster. The comparisons are unfair but inevitable: he lacks the charm, the eye twinkle, the raw passion that his father had, even at the same age. This would be fine if he found and did his own thing with flair. Unfortunately, there’s not a single acting choice here that sticks out. I hope he can continue to improve and finds his own voice. Alphie, Washington’s character (can’t remember the name, not a good sign) and Janney’s colonel are the only three people that could be called characters in this very long movie, and the colonel gets a minute of development. Everyone else is flat, stock cardboard.
Despite all these issues, I had a pretty good time watching this. I went in expecting goofy Avatar-ish, Rogue Oney nonsense, and I got oodles. It was worth a half-price Tuesday ticket (nothing over six bucks though). Madeleine Yuna Voyles also puts in a truly impressive performance at only nine years old. Hopefully she was treated well on set and is able to find a movie more worthy of her talent and effort next time.
SPOILER ALERT
While brushing my teeth, I realized that the writers managed to squeeze three deaths out of a single female character with near zero development. That has to be some kind of non-Edge of Tomorrow/Happy Death Day, deaths/development record. Hah!, truly a movie that gets funnier and funnier the more you think about it. Kinda makes me wish someone would finally make a gender-swapped Sailing to Byzantium (Silverberg, not Yeats… well, Yeats by way of Silverberg) movie, so we could see these ideas fleshed out in a genuine scifi romance.
Believe it or not, my local CBS affiliate uses a robot weather app called “Skynet.” 😀
Climbing down out of the trees was a mistake for humanity…
Great review. You skewered the exact problems I had with this film.The world of the story and the “war” at it’s centre made no sense at all, the film’s treatment of AI was basically non-existent and the stupidity piled up with virtually every single plot point. I knew things were going to be bad after 15 minutes when New Asia’s top secret lab complex developing a crucial superweapon could be broken into by a single squad of grunts jumping out of a futuristic helicopter and threatening to shoot a dog. Things only got worse from there.