The Creator: Gareth Edwards Flips the Script on the 'Evil AI' Meme
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-plus
Superior technology and an assumption of ill-intent. Whatever the reality turns out to be in the coming years, Hollywood has interestingly mirrored its take on artificial intelligence with its long-time “alien invasion” fixation.
The “maybe we’re the monsters” vibe eventually took hold in movies like ET, Starman, Arrival, etc., but from War of the Worlds to Independence Day, alien xenophobia still loomed large in entertainment consciousness.
Similarly, from 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 to the Terminator movies, the expectation has invariably been there that if we create something smarter than us, it will go rogue.
Which is where I segue to Rogue One director (see what I did there?), Gareth Edwards’ genuinely intelligent and emotional action film The Creator.
Both written and directed by the British filmmaker (whose enterprising first feature, Monsters, used effects substantially created on a desktop computer), The Creator begins on a note we’ve come to expect. A military speech is given on the 10th anniversary of an AI-blamed nuclear blast that had decimated Los Angeles (hello, SkyNet!).
Was it a Pearl Harbor or a Reichstag Fire? Either way, a war has been raging with humans eventually having the edge, courtesy of a trillion-dollar flying city called Nomad that can ID and destroy pretty much anything on the ground anywhere.
That includes “New Asia,” a continental-state that has notably not joined the U.S. in its war, and even continues to use humanoid robots as everything from police officers to farmers.
It is not long before Edwards has flipped the usual script. In the opening scenes we meet Joshua (Tenet and BlacKkKlansman’s John David Washington), a U.S. military sergeant and tech-augmented amputee who has infiltrated an island paradise peopled by androids. There he lives with his pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan), until a raid by Nomad that leaves him bereft and facing accusations of having “gone native.”
Suspicions aside, Josh is conscripted to fly to New Asia with a team (whose tough-as-nails leader is impressively played by Allison Janney). Their mission: find an “ultimate weapon” created by the AIs. The weapon turns out to be a synthetic child that Joshua names Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Alphie – for reasons intrinsic to the script – instinctively trusts Joshua, who responds in kind.
The Creator is oddly a bonding-and-relationship-reconnection movie, despite the constant carnage and chase scenes. Joshua’s experience with the AIs is ultimately one of acceptance. The we-are-them note was carried all the way down to casting, where many of the actors were reportedly not told whether they were playing humans or robots. (The visual indicator of difference, an empty space at the back of the neck allowing access to components, was CGI-applied).
The scenario-flip changes the way we view the movie. Maybe partly because of his Star Wars connection, Nomad becomes less a dreadnaught defending mankind and more like the Death Star. And Alphie’s much-feared powers remarkably resemble The Force.
There are counter-intuitive plot-turns to be sure. But like the best science fiction, The Creator is more about us than about The Other. And it has an emotional core that you seldom find in other action films of its size and budget.
The Creator. Directed and co-written (with Chris Weitz) by Gareth Edwards. Starring John David Washington, Gemma Chan and Madeleine Yuna Voyles. Opens Friday, September 29.