The Creator (2023)

Since I lowered my frequency of blog entries, I'm trying for the few I'm posting to close these with a rating above average. This means finding a movie that deserves recommending. And this is the reason why I was very close this time to turn back again to a South-Korean title from the 2000's, but finally the "payback" urge for two hours lost with "The Creator" won. So...

What we have here is a SciFi set in a future where the Western world banned AI, apparently guilty for a nuclear blast that swiped Los Angeles. The Eastern World doesn't really agree with the general opinion that AI is bad, the result being some sort of war targeting an android population made in Asia, persecuted by the US army through incursions within the enemy territory. In all this context we have a romance between an US sergeant and the daughter of the main mysterious AI architect. Long story short (and it is short, because there's not much else), she dies in an attack, he gets back home, and after some years he's sent back to get "the weapon" - some device developed by the AI camp, which would be capable to disable the entire armed power of the West. As we find out from the trailers, the weapon is a child, and from here onwards we have a couple of predictable mini-twists, which I'll leave aside to keep something left for watching.

The humanity vs AI conflict is a SciFi theme since the notion of AI emerged, meaning decades. In cinema this theme catched traction mostly by positioning AI on the negative side: Terminator, Matrix, etc which is probably the simpler perspective = it's more natural for the average person watching a movie to empathize with the man than with the machine. "The Creator" wants the opposite, and probably attempts to build up on the ongoing trend where we have AI everywhere. I'm not saying that good AI vs bad people is something to be excluded, having elements of this kind in SciFis like "Blade Runner" or "I, Robot", or more precisely in the classic writings which these are based on, by P.K. Dick and Asimov, respectively. But there the story is much, much more nuanced than what we get here. What we receive in this movie is just some pale recycling of bits like the robotic laws where the android is not capable to commit murder, but that's something quite selective which we find out in the end. What we really do get in the movie is the Hollywood standard from the last years thrown over this shallow base of SciFi, transforming everything in a very politically correct class fight, where the AI become an actual social category ostracized by others and demanding its rights. Everything is one-side and black and white. It's probably enough for a public used to not bother anymore with thinking about the grey nuances in a story, preferring to get some shooting and explosions VFX instead. But well... maybe you can't expect from Gareth Edwards (director + screenwriter), who started from VFX in his career, to be an Asimov.

Probably someone could argue against the above, saying that we have the main character who's the good human, capable to understand that AI is not evil. Well, the problem is, if I would compare John David Washington with Arnold Schwarzenegger from the 30 years old Terminator 2, I don't think there's any doubt who of the two characters brings more balance. The acting doesn't help at all, and I really don't want to comment on what could be the reason behind the casting, but after all the script is still the root of all evil. The rigidity of T-800 that changes slowly over the course of Terminator 2 gives a much more human and credible side to the killing machine there, than the hysterical sergeant who moves here suddenly from extremes of threatening with a "shut down" to others with scenes drowned in tears. Add to this a terrible dosage of comic relief that's limited to the start of the movie followed by a continuous, totally opposed, tragedy feeling towards the end. The clip I added besides the trailer is relevant, despite the praising regarding the director's capacity of empathic infusion (didn't catch for me, sorry). All this is garnished with an editing including some flashbacks that are breaking the developing action thread and could've very well be placed in the normal chronological order. The only part that saves a bit what we get here are the visuals and the production desing, which indeed give a feeling alternating between a dystopic setting a la "Blade Runner" and bits of "Star Wars". Moreover, this looks like somehow trying to tell you, despite everything else, that if you had a different script and directing, the movie could've been actually good. But it's not.

Rating: 2 out of 5