The Creator

When I saw the first “Avatar” film in a room full of moviegoers looking for an amazing experience of cutting edge 3D and new technical strides in cinema, I was expecting to be completely blown-away… and I was… visually. However, I was probably the only one in the theater that walked away saying, “That was not a good movie.”

I was challenged vigorously by my friends who were gushing over the colors, sights and depth of the picture. They couldn’t understand my stance, even after I explained I felt very… what’s the word… manipulated after the viewing. It was basically “Dances With Wolves,” I said, mixed with “Pocahontas” (1995) in space.

The military was bad and you knew it based on the comical scar on the general’s face and the biker-gang looking soldiers. The aliens were pleasing blue, athletically built, huge Disney-eyed cats that were easy to fall in love with. It would not have been as big a hit, I surmised, if the aliens looked like blue xenomorphs or even Admiral Ackbar-ish fish people. Sure the visuals were great, but the story was complete dreck, I said. I found myself walking alone for the rest of the night.

Some of these thoughts came back to me as I was watching Gareth Edwards’ “The Creator.” I am a big fan of Edwards sci-fi documentary style starting with his first film “Monsters” (2010), followed by the game-changing “Godzilla” (2014), and one of my Top 3 favorite movies of the Star Wars franchise “Rouge One” (2016). Like director Neill Blomkamp of “District 9” fame, Edwards has an edgy, realistic and gritty style that works well with a seamless integration of hash reality and futuristic flair. Like “Avatar,” the visuals are stunning and memorable in their own way, but are they compatible with the story’s possible weaknesses?

Immediately we are given a description of events that lead up to the main conflict. Artificial Intelligence has been given some massive pull and power in the culture by the world’s major tech companies which have created autonomous robots to help and serve.

It’s never explained how, but a nuke detonates in Los Angeles, California killing millions of people and causing America to launch a worldwide crusade to destroy all AI life. This is done through the use of the massive and visually arresting NOMAD (North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense), a mammoth space station that emits an eerie blue laser on the targeted landmass to detect AI lifeforms and destroy them with guided missiles (an idea very much like the SHIELD helicarriers in Winter Soldier).

The US military is desperately trying to find the so-called “Nimrata” (a Sanskrit word that translates to The Creator) who, along with the help of the AI, is planning to build a high-tech weapon to destroy NOMAD.

The story comes together with a series of flashbacks involving Sergeant Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) who is an ex-special forces agent assigned a special mission: to live with his “mark” Maya (Gemma Chan) who may be the daughter of the Nirmata. To complicate things, Joshua has fallen in love and impregnated Maya, and, in a military operation gone wrong, she is killed as he is recovered by the military.

Present day shows Joshua, now with robotic prothesis, being approached by the gravelly-voiced General Andrews (Ralph Ineson) and the coldly-shrewd Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) to give him an assignment to find the Nirmata’s weapon. He refuses until he finds out that his dead wife may in fact be alive in New Asia where AI is alive and well and continuing to be mass-produced. He decides to accept the mission.

Joshua is bitter against the AI and believe them to be mindless machines. As he gains access to the secured building that houses the “weapon,” Joshua finds that it’s actually an AI in child-form he names Alphie (very well played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles) who has a secret that will affect him personally. Alphie is an AI type that merges human features with robotic instrumentation (unlike the other AI robots that exist in New Asia that are purely non-organic in nature) which shows Joshua that AI can indeed have the the possibility of emotions.

He and Alphie become more connected as he struggles to get her out of New Asia and back to America. Along the way Joshua feels torn between his mission and his emotions that leads to new discoveries of how human AI has become. When he decides to go against his mission to save Alphie, based on new discoveries he makes, he becomes the new target of the military leaders and NOMAD itself in his quest to find his possibly-alive wife and probable child.

The style of “The Creator” culminated from a bunch of previously successful sci-fi films like “Blade Runner,” “Akira,” “Elysium,” and “Rouge One” itself, plus stylistic nods to “Apocalypse Now.” The budget was $80 million, and it looks absolutely amazing. I saw this in IMAX, and I am so glad I did. The images of AI robots mixed with far-eastern visuals and mysticism create some of the most arresting visuals I have seen this year. As far as looks go, this movie is a true stunner.

The story, however, did give me minor flashbacks to my “Avatar” experience which evoked some feelings of blatant manipulation. The military characters are laughably one-dimensional, and scenes of AI monks dressed in long pulu skirts being gunned down had me rolling my eyes. There is definitely a strong anti-military vibe that you get hit with repeatedly. Some of the fight scenes are very much patterned after any Vietnam movie you have seen in the last 40 years, and having a child as the main centerpiece around which the action flies is something we have seen many times before in sci-fi and other genres. While not as manipulative as I found “Avatar,” there were those cringe elements that stuck out like a sore robotic thumb.

There is strong constant violence to humans and human-like AI with many intense battle scenes. There is no nudity, but the language is fairly strong for a PG-13 (30 Sh*t, 1 F-word (said by the child actor), a few D**m, one SOB, one D**k, and 4 GD or JC).

During their time together, Joshua and Alphie discuss heaven, as Alphie wonders about such a place and who gets to go there. Joshua says if you are good enough you will go to heaven when you die. Alphie asks if Joshua will be there, to which he replies, “No, I’m not good enough to get there.” The idea of being “good enough” to get to heaven has been around for most of history. Most people I run into believe this same idea.

I always found it not only spiritually false but logically confusing that someone can believe that God will judge (based on good outweighing the bad) if someone will experience the joy of heaven or the pain of hell. What is the one sin that tips the scales to hell? What is the one good action that tips the scales to heaven? Most people believe, I guess, God seemingly gives no real guidelines on the most important question in existence—”Where you will spend eternity?”. It seems cruel to leave such an important question hanging in the balance with no real answer. Thankfully, God does give an answer in His Word which we can see in one verse:

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” —Ephesian 2:8-9

Good works has nothing to go with going to heaven. Good works are actually just an outpouring of a changed heart that has been saved by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus” sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead. God gives it as a free gift and we know that you do not have to work to receive a gift (or else it’s not a gift anymore). We do not have to work to receive eternal life but only trust in what Jesus has done already and receive it by childlike faith.

So does The Creator’s visuals outweigh the clunkiness of the script? Is it worth your time if you are into good sci-fi? I would say the story definitely could be better. Yet the actors do a good job here, and the visuals are gripping, so I think that outweighs the negatives of the screenwriting. With that said, you may want to see this on the big screen to get the full effect. Okay, I’ll concede it’s no “Avatar,” but that’s probably a good thing in my book. I’ll definitely be in line for the next Gareth Edwards’ film when it comes out.

• Violence: Very Heavy
• Vulgar/Crude language: Heavy
• Profane language: Moderate
• Drugs/Alcohol: Mild
• Nudity: None
• Sex: None
• Occult: None
• Wokeism: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.