The Creator Review: This Gorgeous Sci-Fi Upstart Does Not Compute, No Matter How Hard It Tries

Over the past few months, audiences have been promised a “motion picture event” with the release of The Creator. A hugely hyped sci-fi epic from co-writer/director Gareth Edwards, this IP-less blockbuster arrives following a summer box office season that saw Oppenheimer as a big win in a franchise-obsessed industry. 

A path has been paved for this sweeping drama starring John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles to be a surprise at the box office... that is, if audiences can somehow dig into this gorgeous looking future that doesn’t deliver a story that’s either new or impressive. 

The Creator banks on a premise that most audiences will recognize as the central conceit for stories ranging from Lone Wolf and Cub to The Mandalorian: John David Washington’s Joshua is initially on a vengeance driven mission to kill an artificial intelligence-built weapon known as Alpha-O, but he shifts into the "unlikely" role of stalwart protector when he discovers that said weapon is an android child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) of great power. 

Our hero, initially dismissive of A.I. life, turns into a reluctant ally, even going as far as to bestow his charge with the nickname Alphie. With this child being the potential key to a mystery involving his long lost wife (Gemma Chan), Joshua further softens against the technological entities he once viewed as enemies. The parts to this particular model are definitely sourced from familiar stories of the past – but that alone isn’t the greatest sin that’s perpetrated by The Creator. 

Instead, it’s what’s done (or rather, not done) with all of those components that really sinks the ambitions of this movie. Two traditional pillars of machine-driven fiction fail to come together as a cohesive whole.

The Creator loves a good message, it just can’t seem to figure out which one it loves the most.

At its core, The Creator really wants to be a sci-fi epic that holds a timely message. With dialogue like “We let A.I. out of the box” sprinkled into a movie that very heavily references iconography of the Vietnam War, Gareth Edwards and Chris Weisz’s script splits its thematic eggs into two baskets.

On one hand, we have The Creator that wants to be an anti-war fable that banks on the love of a soldier for a robotic child. Laying it on thick with the anti-AI sentiment, this picture isn’t afraid to show machines being mistreated as the representation of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Meanwhile, the other wolf in the fight is a version of the movie that aspires to play towards the ethics of the creation and usage of AI, with massive billboards asking people to “donate your likeness” for reasons that are far from clear at any point in this story. 

Neither of these messages totally land, as all throughout this adventure neither of these plot lines are woven together with enough energy for us to really be invested. Just as you think you might be sinking into political commentary involving unintentionally adorable suicide bomber bots, or an emotional thread in Joshua’s journey to protect Alphie, the picture clumsily shifts focus to the other track. Or it just blows up another location with the same exact explosion you should expect to see every time the flying American bombing platform known as NOMAD finds its next target. 

An impressive cast, anchored by John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles, is as wasted as the stunning world they inhabit.

As John David Washington’s Joshua rebels against the commanding officers that brought him back into the fold (Allison Janney & Ralph Ineson), we the audience are supposed to follow the seemingly natural chain that leads Joshua from anti-machine sentiments to paternal feelings towards this child. If we were going by the talents of Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles alone, that emotional throughline may have worked out in the long run. 

But the talents of both actors are wasted with a plot that feels simultaneously ham-fisted and half baked. That waste expands to the rest of the ensemble, which also includes the talents of Ken Watanabe and Sturgill Simpson. There are rare moments where The Creator allows the charm of its cast to shine amid the mixed messaging, and in those moments there’s actually a little bit of excitement to be had. 

If it weren't for the clunky and confusing story that The Creator saddles its actors with, those performances could have played much better. That just isn’t allowed in this battlefield, though, as we’re left to puzzle over just which theme we’re supposed to focus on in any given scene. It feels as though there’s a longer version of this movie that makes more sense, or the story was just as confusing in the directions given to the cast as it was on the page. 

Though featuring a gorgeously designed sci-fi universe, The Creator fails to create a consistently entertaining singularity.

If there’s any component to The Creator that you could walk away possibly being satisfied with, it’s the commitment to the look and feel of this version of 2070. Impressive robotic creations and dystopian landscapes are stuffed into the movie as yet another source of stimuli, though at least with the visuals of future Los Angeles, where LAX is now a spaceport that can send you straight to the Moon, the excesses work to enhance the film's worldbuilding.

Style definitely wins out over substance in The Creator. Were the story developed with greater focus and fewer tropes, I could see where the claims of Gareth Edwards’ film being a “motion picture event” came from. The shaggy and undefined structure of the movie we actually get, however, doesn’t come anywhere near those promises, which is the ultimate bummer for a world that looks this sharp.