Movie Review: Thoughts on "The Creator
Visual spectacle in the age of AI
Spoilers, obviously.
“The Creator” is sci-fi epic that released somewhat under the radar earlier this year. I’m a bit surprised how little marketing there was — beyond a few inscrutable billboard and subway ads in and around midtown NYC, there was basically no ‘buzz’ about this film. The film was released in September, which is typically a dead month for movies; and it was released during the general SAG-AFTRA strike, which probably didn’t help. I used to shit on billboard marketing because, like, surely people aren’t making purchasing decisions based on obscure references to things plastered onto floating advertisements in the sky? in 2023? But I suppose they have some ROI, because that’s how I found out about this movie.
And I’m glad I did.
I thought “The Creator” was probably one of the most visually compelling movies I’ve seen in a long time. The movie does a fantastic job immediately pulling the audience into its world. Looming structures, immaculate space stations and labs, farming mechs, Buddhist robots — “The Creator” depicts a lived in universe that feels like it has real lore and infinite depth to it. I think the set pieces are a big draw of the movie, so I just want to spend a bit dissecting them.
“The Creator” is obviously pulling heavy inspiration from the original Star Wars films, which isn’t a surprise given that the director Gareth Edwards also helmed “Rogue One”, the best Star Wars movie since the originals. You can also see “Blade Runner” and “Akira” all over the visual design.
But let’s just look at Star Wars for a second — take a look at these shots of “A New Hope”:
There is a sense of scale and grandeur, both modern and ancient, that is irresistible in these movies. Star Wars is obviously telling a specific story, following specific characters and their emotional arcs. But the universe feels simultaneously vast and dense, encouraging viewers to draw connections and ask questions. There’s a juxtaposition of foreign (two moons, space ships) and familiar (desert farms, forest temples), enough to anchor and still invite curiosity. These shots make me want to know the story behind the story. And I’m not the only one — Star Wars has one of the most prolific extended universes of any fictional property out there.
Here are a few shots from “The Creator”.
Maybe I’ve just played too many fantasy sci-fi games (Overwatch?), but something about a robot in traditional Buddhist robes is like catnip for my brain. I want to know everything about future LA, about NOMAD, about this cyberpunk neo-Asian society, about these robot outposts, about how all these things came to be, about the lives that these people have before, during, and after the events of the main film. I think the word of choice here is evocative. I feel excitement and curiosity just looking at these stills — which, honestly, is probably why I ended up going to watch this movie just from a few billboards. And the whole movie was like this!
I came out of this movie expecting the budget to be massive. So I was blown away when I found out that this movie only cost $80M. It puts big budget Marvel shitfests (each of which cost an average of $300M) to shame. Why doesn’t every movie look like this? Why are we stuck in a rut with the same sci-fi reboots and sequels1 over and over and over and…
A few other worthwhile call outs on the visual-spectacle/world-building side:
I loved the attention to detail for smaller world building elements. Of course there’s a service to “Donate Your Likeness to the AI”. Of course there’s a way to scan brains and bring people back using an AI chip. Those moments were pleasant surprises that made the movie feel much more alive.
The sound design of NOMAD was perfect. Every single time that thing dropped a tactical nuke, it felt serious, grim, devastating. Considering they drop maybe 5 nukes through the course of the story, it’s an impressive feat to keep that feeling weighty.
I enjoyed the designs of the AI, from entirely-non-humanoid to nearly human. First, it made tons of sense from a world-building perspective that bots with different purposes would have different forms, or that there would be different versions/generations. Second, it does a great job continually emphasizing the central premise of the movie. Have you ever seen Downsizing? The terrible Matt Damon movie? The central conceit of the movie is that the main characters have all been shrunk down, but for the majority of the movie this might as well be a minor detail. “The Creator” doesn't have this program, because it makes you fall in love with it's obviously-AI characters.
Not really a call out, but I can’t help make visual comparisons to other media that draws me in in the same way. Star Wars, as mentioned. But also Avatar the Last Airbender with it’s beautiful shots of abandoned Air Temples or the City of Omashu. Or maybe Myst, with it’s mysterious high definition pre-rendered worlds. Hell, even Marvel nails this sometimes — go look at Wakanda and tell me that you aren’t excited just from the city fly over.
So why is “The Creator” not a shoo-in for every Oscar? In short, because the story was cliche and the acting was not that great.
Look, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a rote plot used as a passable vehicle for beautiful sci-fi visuals. The first Avatar was pretty widely acknowledged to be a rip-off of Pocahontas, didn’t stop Cameron from making a cool $3 billion (last I checked). The last few years have seen several ‘grizzled Dad learns the meaning of love from cute child with Magic Powers’ (see: Logan, Stranger Things s2, Mandalorian, the Last of Us). “The Creator” falls squarely within that general trope.
That’s not a bad thing, and in fact several movies with that general structure have done really well on execution. “The Creator”…well, it just doesn’t. Reports suggest that the movie had some 2 hours left on the cutting room floor, and it shows. There is a fair bit of choppiness, with a ton of character motivations that don’t have time to fully develop and critical world-building details that are a bit too under-specified. While the movie itself ends up having a fast, frenetic pacing — playing off some of the choppiness with a ‘chapter’ structure to suggest longer passages of time — there are too many places where I can’t really suspend my disbelief.
This is exacerbated by a pretty lackluster performance from John David Washington, the protagonist. To put it gently, the man can’t emote. He kinda just has this face the whole movie:
This is a man who is torn up inside about betraying his wife and unborn child, a direct result of which has them both nuked from orbit by the most powerful military technology known to man. We are told that he’s a grief stricken mess, but boy I wouldn’t have figured that out by myself. It goes without saying that I think a more powerful and emotional performance would have papered over some of the more obvious cuts, making various details feel more coherent.
Still, I don’t think any of this actually ruins the movie. I generally think of myself as someone who really gets annoyed when little details don’t make sense, and I think I didn’t really notice any inconsistencies until much later when I was thinking the movie over.
Part of that is because I actually really liked the meta-story of “The Creator”. I may be biased as an AI researcher, but I enjoyed a serious take on what humanoid AI intelligence might look like and how it might be weaponized/demonized. I liked the meta-politics floating behind the scenes in an obviously highly-organized robot ‘rebellion’. I loved that the bad-guys were just straight up evil! I’m still a sucker for “all the main characters die at the end”.
And part of it is that the supporting cast all were really quite good. The child actor for Alfie, in particular, did a fantastic job. And Ken Watanabe is always great. But even actors who showed up for a few scenes, or those who were voice-only, really helped sell the legitimacy of the rest of the universe that was being built up.
At the end of the day, when I think more deeply about it, sometimes you don’t need beat-by-beat details and emotional dialogue to make a good movie. Sometimes you just need to let your visual designers have a fucking field day, and put a good high level narrative around that. I mean, it worked for these guys:
Except Andor, that was actually great.