'The Creator' is a new take on a trusted sci-fi trope of humanity vs "the other". In this case, we have an almost Skynet-like rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots - set 50 years in the future - but then the film takes a bit of a turn, as we predominantly follow Joshua (Washington), Maya (Chan) and Alphie (Voyles) and their struggle between survival and doing the right thing. Probably Edwards' best film since 'Monsters'.
This is definitely not an outright sci-fi war film, like 'Edge of Tomorrow', and is not a Star Wars rip-off, but does take elements of both. There's also elements of 'Chappie', 'Elysium', 'Westworld', but it's all very focused on the humans vs AI struggle and the greyness of what's right/best for the future, and that age-old sci-fi question: what does it mean to be human?
The cinematography is excellent, Washington and Voyles are great, Janney as the Colonel plays well against type, we get Watanabe as a wise robot and the final set-piece is pretty impressive, based around the NOMAD ship. Sometimes the tone/pace is a little off, and none of the reveals are particularly shocking, but it does add up to a pretty coherent, plausible and satisfying whole.
This is definitely not an outright sci-fi war film, like 'Edge of Tomorrow', and is not a Star Wars rip-off, but does take elements of both. There's also elements of 'Chappie', 'Elysium', 'Westworld', but it's all very focused on the humans vs AI struggle and the greyness of what's right/best for the future, and that age-old sci-fi question: what does it mean to be human?
The cinematography is excellent, Washington and Voyles are great, Janney as the Colonel plays well against type, we get Watanabe as a wise robot and the final set-piece is pretty impressive, based around the NOMAD ship. Sometimes the tone/pace is a little off, and none of the reveals are particularly shocking, but it does add up to a pretty coherent, plausible and satisfying whole.