Gareth Edwards’ The Creator: A Visual Marvel Held Back by Familiar Tropes

In the realm of science fiction, mega franchises like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or Bladerunner often dominate our imagination.

Yet, the silver screen has its share of standalone sci-fi films that manage to captivate audiences without relying on interconnected universes.

Movies like In Time, Arrival, or even 2001: A Space Odyssey have proven that sci-fi worlds can exist independently, offering unique narratives that stand the test of time. Then again, these movies are also doomed to obscurity should they not leave a lasting impression on audiences.

However, for everyone standout like Snowpiercer, there are films like Oblivion or Annihilation that, despite doing many things right, don’t reach their full potential as sci-fi masterpieces. This brings us to Gareth Edwards’ latest venture, The Creator, which teeters on the edge of cinematic brilliance.

While The Creator offers breathtaking set pieces and intriguing character designs, these elements may not be enough for The Creator to live up to the cinematic event that it claims to be. Can The Creator stand the test of time or will it become forgotten someday?

A Rush and A Push

The Creator is another major spectacle by Gareth Edwards, who brings the same level of adrenaline from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The fear of AI taking over the world is heightened in a whole new way, with John David Washington’s Joshua being caught in the crossfire.

The film centres around Joshua, a special forces agent who lost his wife in the war against artificial intelligence. Five years have passed and Joshua is tasked with destroying Nirmata, the creator of the AI machines that pose a threat to the United States.

It straddles the line between making peace with artificial intelligence and mankind itself, with The Creator borrowing a lot of its setpieces from movies set in the Vietnam War. On top of that, it still features some exciting shootouts that make full use of its futuristic setting.

Conceptually, The Creator is a pastiche of varying science fiction tropes, one that isn’t groundbreaking aside from its cool setpieces and robot designs. The movie’s structure is also like that of a video game, with Joshua moving from place to place to accomplish a specific goal each time.

Computer Blue

What truly holds The Creator back is its struggle to break free from the shackles of retrofuturism, drawing heavy inspiration from classics like Bladerunner and The Terminator.

The version of the future portrayed in The Creator feels outdated the moment you see it on screen.

The film’s portrayal of a future laden with Japanese imagery feels out of place in an era where Chinese and South Korean technology has long surpassed the ‘80s-era technology that Japan was once renowned for.

The movie’s simplistic portrayal of morality, casting Asian characters as agents of peace and American military forces as purely evil, leaves its messaging shallow and one-dimensional.

If you miss that ‘80s lens of the future, this movie is for you. But otherwise, it doesn’t push the envelope far enough, resulting in a somewhat predictable film throughout.

The Man-Machine

With AI being a hot-button topic today, it is equally as important to create art about AI. Seeing a world where robots and artificial humans can be policemen and deliverymen is definitely something we can foresee in our own future.

This general discussion about how far AI can go has been around for a long time, with The Terminator and The Matrix showing the absolute extreme of this concept. While it presents a human perspective on creating AI, The Creator falls short of delivering the impactful revelation that could make it memorable.

Part of this limitation could be attributed to the lead actors, John David Washington and his child companion, who struggle to infuse the film with the depth it requires.

We’re all for standalone sci-fi films like The Creator to continue bringing new ideas to the genre, but there definitely needs to be more innovation than rethreads for these films to stand out and become more than just flashes in the pan.