I’ve been excited to see The Creator since the trailer first dropped. It looked very fresh, and while the idea wasn’t new (a war between humans and artificial intelligence), It seemed very promising. Unfortunately it was unable to deliver.
The film begins in the year 2065, a decade after AI detonated a nuclear warhead over Los Angeles, setting off a war that we are still fighting. There’s basically 2 sides: America and its allies in the west, who have outlawed artificial intelligence, against the east, or “New Asia” who still lives with and supports robots/AI. But the tide may be turning. The USA has developed a weapon called NOMAD, a low orbit space station with incredible weaponry, which can target objects from space and hit with pinpoint accuracy, decimating entire towns. Its goal: finding and killing Nirmata, a mysterious person who is supposedly the mastermind behind AI’s advancements in New Asia. While NOMAD is in space, on the ground is Joshua Taylor, an undercover agent who may finally be zeroing in on Nirmata. Unfortunately, he’s gotten too close to his subject, Nirmata’s daughter Maya. Taylor and Maya have fallen in love, and are expecting a child. This comes apart when NOMAD destroys the village where they’ve been living, killing Maya, and bringing Taylor back into their fold.
Five years later, Taylor is brought in by the military brass with a new mission. Intelligence has found that Nirmata has developed a new super weapon, and they want Taylor to lead a mission into an AI base to take it out. With new info that Maya may still be alive, Taylor jumps at the opportunity. He and his team make it in, only to find that the “weapon” is a young girl-looking robot nicknamed Alphie, who can control technology with a thought. Basically she can control or override any technology she is near. Rather than kill her on sight, Taylor rescues Alphie, with the hopes that she can lead him to Maya. For the rest of the movie, Alphie and Taylor develop a bond in the hunt for Maya, while being pursued by the Americans. We learn some things along the way too, such as the robots contending that the bomb over LA was caused by human error, not by AI, and that America has always been the aggressor. The film culminates in the duo getting on board NOMAD, attempting to end the war.
The film fulfills its promise of gorgeous computer effects, and it looks really cool, but as far as story goes, it is a huge letdown. It comes off as a super low budget action flick with slick graphics, and that’s about it. There are some wild plot points that make no sense, like the Americans shooting any robot they see, but when they capture Alphie at one point, having to go through this whole “decommission” process instead. Or those kinds of “you have two options” scenarios where “neither is good” that always pop up on dumb action flicks. Not to mention, if Taylor really believes in his country and their war, why he’d be willing to throw it all away and sacrifice millions of lives to try to find Maya again. There’s so much that just doesn’t make any sense. And though I was hoping for at least some kind of new ideas exploring AI, especially with where we are in our world right now, there was none. In fact, it reverted to human’s view of AI 30 years ago, when AI basically equals a robot. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Should be 1 star, but getting 2, just because even though it is bad, it looks so damn good. ★★
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