Film review: Storytelling feels disjointed throughout The Creator in favour of action

it results in a film that feels like Blade Runner with its metaphysical aspects siphoned off

Gemma Chan as Maya in The Creaor. 

★★★☆☆

Set in 2065, The Creator (12A) is a sci-fi thriller in which ‘Nirmata’ is worshipped by the androids and cyborgs that now share the planet with humans. 

With the West determined to wipe out artificial intelligence, and New Asia equally determined to live with non-humans as equals, the ex-US Army intelligence officer, Joshua (John David Washington), is sent behind enemy lines to track down and destroy the superweapon currently being designed by Nirmata. 

But when Joshua discovers that the weapon is the half-human, half-cyborg child, Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), all bets are off, and soon Joshua and Alphie are fleeing for their lives.

A sill from The Creator

Written by Chris Weitz and Gareth Edwards, with Edwards directing, The Creator opens strongly with its exploration of what it means to be human (or non-human) before jettisoning its more conceptual elements for a standard shoot-’em-up — practically every second scene concludes with another breathless, hair’s breadth escape as Joshua strives to make good on his promise to return Alphie to Mother, aka Nirmata.

The main issue is that the storytelling feels disjointed throughout, as if the narrative was brutally edited in order to splice together the action-heavy scenes, which
results in a film that feels like Blade Runner with its metaphysical aspects siphoned off. 

Gareth Edwards has previously directed the sci-fi movies Monsters (2010) and Rogue One (2016), and The Creator leans heavily into the space opera elements of the latter — no harm if you’re a Star Wars fan, of course, but rather disappointing if you’re genuinely curious about how humanity might eventually come to terms with AI.

(cinema release)