We are ten years after a nuclear attack on Los Angeles. Almost a million people fell victim to it. The artificial intelligence blamed for this was banned from the Western world. On the other side of the globe, in “New Asia”, the so-called “simulants”, machines with AI, are not only tolerated, they are integrated into society.
According to the American military, however, they represent an existential threat to humanity. That is why the US military is hunting them with a gigantic spaceship called Nomad, which scans huge areas for simulants from a great height in order to destroy them. An elite soldier named Joshua Taylor (John David Washington, son of Denzel) is caught in the crossfire when he is tasked with neutralizing an AI weapon that could mean the end of humanity.
Joshua is not very enthusiastic, he doesn't care if humanity dies out, he throws at Colonel Howell (Allison Janney). But Howell knows his weak points, and so Joshua soon goes into battle again. He reluctantly becomes the protector of an orphan named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) – and must question the assumptions under which he and his commander operate.
References to the Vietnam War
The whole thing is tightly staged and excellently acted – Washington cuts a good figure as the reluctant hero, Janney plays her commander with courageous determination. And Madeleine Yuna Voyles, who was seven during filming, embodies Alphie with astonishing earnestness. The story, which director Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One”) wrote together with Chris Weitz (“About A Boy”), combines tried-and-tested themes from science fiction film literature – the fight against “others”, an end-time threat overpowering empire and a lone fighter whose mission of destruction leads to a rescue mission.
Political undertones can be found in references to the Vietnam War, and one may be reminded of “Blade Runner” or “District 9”. Of course, James Cameron's “Terminator” films were also the inspiration, whose aesthetics are paid homage here.
But “The Creator” finds no real depth and increasingly becomes an action thriller full of logical holes. Despite a brilliant start to an enthusiasm for technology rooted in the fulfillment of ever greater conveniences, the questions that arise with regard to the automation of life are subordinated to a feel-good story.
And despite the fact that “The Creator” is set forty years in the future, the film about the planetary showdown between humans and “simulants” lives very much in the past: The focus is primarily on the sentimentally postponed question of whether robots are better humans are. The debate about machine ethics, which Isaac Asimov dealt with more than 70 years ago, seems antiquated. After all, today it is no longer so much about the rights of robots, but rather about the consequences of omnipresent AI.
The optics remain: Edwards made this breathtakingly beautiful film for a comparatively paltry $80 million. The opulence is due to his sense of staging spaces, of distance and proximity – whether it is the sky over idyllic green landscapes that seemingly extends into space, the interior of a spaceship or the confines of an off-road vehicle. The threat here comes not from a monstrous battleship, but from the thin blue line that the Nomad battleship glides across the landscape to wipe out captured simulants. In the end you are released with an emotional ending that is too long in coming. “The Creator” is a film worth seeing that will make you wish you were sitting in front of the big screen. If it weren't so half-baked in terms of narrative, it could stand in a row with the great sci-fi films that it cites.
The Creator runs on Disney+.
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