Artificial Emotions – The Creator Review

The Creator creates a world filled with beautiful visuals and a few great concepts, but fails to fill it with meaningful ideas and emotions. Its initially intriguing universe crumbles due to a weak foundation, ending up as a forgettable yet visually dazzling experience.

Sci-fi blockbusters nowadays are mainly sequels and remakes, so it’s easy to get excited about something original, like “The Creator” was marketed to be. Gareth Edwards, who previously directed Rogue One (one of the best Star Wars films to date in my opinion), decided to try his craft in the genre again, and the promos were surely promising: dark atmosphere, futuristic weapons and vehicles, and most importantly, AI. Given the relevance of the topic, the movie stands a good chance in cinemas – though in this case, a streaming release would have sufficed.

The Creator takes place in a world, where AI has turned against humanity, leading to a massive atomic explosion in LA, killing millions of people. The West and the East has been in war since then, with the Asian regions supporting their fellow AI citizens, fighting side by side with them, against the “American” West, with significantly bigger resources. In this conflict, Joshua (John David Washington), former undercover soldier is brought back to the field, in the search of a super weapon, developed by a Nirmata, a great engineer, who has been aiding the East from the start.

To summarise The Creator, I’d say it’s a Star Wars meets Blade Runner meets Alien meets Westworld meets Vietnam war kind of experience, at least visually. In the core of it all however, it’s hard to compare it to anything – as there isn’t anything there. Even though the characters work, and the dialogues are decent, when there aren’t action scenes on the screen to pump your adrenaline, there is an emptiness hanging over it all. Even though the whole story centres around AI, it fails to say anything about the phenomenon, except the usual “we should all be friends” type of messages.

Luckily, by no means is The Creator a bad movie. There are moments of brilliance, but they are rather fleeting glimpses. Sometimes the soundtracks elevate what we see into something spectacular, but some scenes feel like they forgot to compose a track for them. Sometimes characters have great emotional moments, sometimes they are broken in half by the horrible pacing. Sometimes The Creator feels like it’s trying to say something, but in the end, it really fails to say anything.

Let me put it this way: if you are looking for a somewhat original sci-fi story, The Creator could be entertaining for you. It won’t blow your mind in any aspect, but you won’t regret seeing it… but at the same time, you might. To my disappointment, that’s the best thing I can say about it.