Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 133 minutes
Release Date: September 29th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: 20th Century Studios
Director(s): Gareth Edwards
Writer(s): Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz / Gareth Edwards (story)

Whoever has that kid, wins the war.

Despite the very sharp turn towards dissent that caused me to forget to even put Gareth Edwards’ The Creator on my watchlist, I found the film to be both exciting and affecting. My favorite science fiction works are those that mine down from their high concept conceit to provide character-based drama instead. So, where you might think this is a story about war between humans and AI, it’s actually a potential redemption arc for a man who lost everything as a result of his fealty to a government wielding fear as a means to control its citizenry.

Joshua (John David Washington) had a choice, though. While the events of the prologue (quick hits of humanity creating AI, AI evolving into human-like simulants, and the inevitable rubicon crossing that was a nuclear blast in Los Angeles) inspire him to fight for his species, years undercover gave him an out. Tasked to follow Maya (Gemma Chan), daughter of the so-called Nirmata, or “Creator” of New Asia’s free race of simulants, Joshua falls in love. The two marry. Maya becomes pregnant. And it seems all is well until an unprovoked attack reveals he’s been playing both sides.

Cue tragedy. Pain. Regret. Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz flash-forward five years to find Joshua broken and alone when the real plot begins. The US Army (led by Allison Janney’s Howell and Ralph Ineson’s Andrews) still wants to find the Nirmata—now more than ever since intel says he’s created a weapon that will give simulants an unequivocal victory. So, they recruit Joshua to lead the mission back to his old stomping grounds. They promise him he might even be able to reclaim what he lost. What none of them could guess, however, is that he’ll actually get the opportunity to find even more.

How? Via a young simulant girl (Madeleine Yuna Voyles’s Alphie). The US calls her a weapon. His old New Asian allies (including Ken Watanabe’s Harun) call her their savior. Joshua simply sees a means to an end—a way to find Maya again. Whether or not it’s just because she’s a child, his old rhetoric about simulants being “programming” gradually fades. He feels something for her. Maybe it’s pity at first, but it blossoms into respect and perhaps even acceptance. Because her innocence somehow renders her “real” in his eyes. And watching humans try to kill her renders them into the monsters they’ve always been.

The result is thus less about the dangers of artificial intelligence and more about America’s growing lack of empathy for those it deems foreigners (abroad and domestic alike). It’s about our ease at projecting our own violence and aggression onto our victims in order to justify our increased vitriol towards them as if it was us who was harmed by their very existence. The messaging and themes become closer to colonizers versus colonized. It’s Americans going to distant lands under the auspices of protecting home. Murdering with impunity and bloodlust in response to a tragedy they refuse to acknowledge their own complicity in igniting.

Sound familiar? So, much talk tried to connect The Creator to the Hollywood strikes and the risks of AI displacing artists when its narrative more closely aligns with the current Palestinian plight against the globally-backed Zionist state of Israel. When do we finally recognize what’s happening? When the body in the crosshairs is no longer an adult we can imagine as the enemy. The same happens here. Joshua has extenuating circumstances as far as not putting a bullet in Alphie’s head straight away, but her being a child quickly becomes as much a deterrent as the possibility that she might take him to Maya.

I’ll leave why that duality means more in the context of the whole to the film itself since elaborating would create spoilers. All I’ll say is that it hit me exactly how Edwards and company hoped despite what I had read about it being a cold, emotionless affair. I will even disagree with comments about Washington being an unfeeling protagonist too since this might be his most three-dimensional and human performance yet. Add the gorgeous production design, breathtaking special effects (on a relatively tiny budget compared to its ilk), and a pitch-perfect ending and this thing is firing on all cylinders. Here’s hoping more people watch it sans expectations to discover just how good it really is.

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(L-R): John David Washington as Joshua and Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie in 20th Century Studios’ THE CREATOR. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.