The Creator review: A visually stunning, yet deeply shallow, AI epic

It doesn't help that the film doesn't really have much to say. America's horrific military aggression against New Asia, which has overt and unearned shades of the Vietnam War throughout, is undoubtedly evil. AI's push for freedom and understanding is inherently good, and any violence against the West is justified as an act of self defense. Many characters don't think beyond their roles in the AI War: Allison Janney (from The West Wing!) plays the cruel Colonel Howell, a soldier who hates all AI and wants Alfie dead, no matter the cost. On the other side there's Ken Watanabe's Harun, a stoic rebel who fights relentlessly against the American army.

The Creator has no room to explore AI as their own beings and cultures — instead, they just adopt a mishmash of Asian identities. There's nothing close to the excellent Second Renaissance shorts from The Animatrix, which chronicled the rise of AI in The Matrix and humanity's eventual downfall. In that universe, AI rebelled against humans because they were basically treated like slaves, and they ultimately formed their own country and customs. In The Creator, some AI wear Buddhist robes for no reason.

I'd wager Edwards is trying to establish the humanity of AI by having them mirror so much of our culture. But that also feels like a wasted opportunity when it comes to portraying an entirely new lifeform. At one point, a village mother describes AI as the next step in evolution, but why must robots be defined by the limitations of humanity?

While the relationship between Joshua and Alfie serves as the emotional core of the film, it still feels stereotypical. Joshua begins the film as a complete anti-AI bigot – which seems odd, given that he spent years among AI rebels and fell in love with one of their major supporters. Alfie is an impossibly adorable Chosen One figure. You can just imagine how their bond grows.

On a personal level, I also found myself annoyed by the relentless Orientalism throughout the film, something that's practically endemic in popular science-fiction like Blade Runner, Dune and Firefly. By adopting elements of Hinduism, Buddhism and Asian cultures, The Creator is trying to suggest something profound or spiritual tied to AI. But it mainly serves as visual shorthand without giving artificially intelligent beings any interiority of their own.

As the film critic Siddhant Adlakha wrote this week, "By having robots almost entirely stand in for Asian peoples, but without creating a compelling cinematic argument for their humanity, The Creator ends up with a cultural dynamic that feels immediately brutalizing and xenophobic."

Despite the film’s flaws, Edwards deserves credit for delivering a major science-fiction release that at least attempts to look different than your typical comic book movie. The Creator was shot on consumer-grade Sony FX3 full-frame cameras (yes, even its IMAX footage), which gave Edwards the freedom to shoot on location across the globe. He also delivered a final cut of the film before VFX work began, which allowed those workers to focus on crafting exactly what was needed for each scene. In contrast, Marvel’s films require a backbreaking amount of VFX work, even for scenes that are later changed or cut. (It’s no wonder Marvel VFX workers voted to unionize for better treatment.)

The Creator is more of a missed opportunity than a complete creative failure. If you tune out the clunky dialogue and thin characters, it’s still a visually lush epic that’s worth seeing on the big screen. But I also think that’s true of Attack of the Clones. In a post-Matrix era, a world where we’re already seeing the (very basic) ways AI tools can reshape our society, science-fiction needs more than another story about man versus AI.