John David Washington is set to take on A.I. and a weapon strong enough to destroy humanity when The Creator hits theaters on Friday, September 29. The weapon that ex-special forces agent Joshua is tasked with eliminating, however, is an Android child he nicknames Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), which turns out to be a problem in writer/director Gareth Edwards’ upcoming sci-fi thriller. Critics have seen the movie ahead of its release, and they’re here to share what we should know about The Creator before deciding whether or not to hit up the theater this weekend.
First reactions to the movie seemed mostly positive, with some people who caught early screenings calling The Creator “life-changing” and praising it as one of the best movies of the year. But now that critics have had a chance to expand their thoughts, they are not in agreement about the overall quality of the film. Let’s see what they’re saying:
Critics Call The Creator’s Plot Half-Baked And Unoriginal
In CinemaBlend’s review of The Creator, our own Mike Reyes writes that Gareth Edwards doesn’t deliver a story that is either new or impressive. The talents of John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles are wasted on a plot that is both ham-fisted and half-baked, he says. Reyes rates it 2.5 stars out of 5, concluding:
Style definitely wins out over substance in The Creator. Were the story developed with greater focus and fewer tropes, I could see where the claims of Gareth Edwards’ film being a ‘motion picture event’ came from. The shaggy and undefined structure of the movie we actually get, however, doesn’t come anywhere near those promises, which is the ultimate bummer for a world that looks this sharp.
Hoai-Tran Bui of Inverse echoes these thoughts and says Gareth Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz wanted so badly to make an original movie that they ended up recycling ideas from other films and combining them into something less potent. In the critic’s words:
The Creator is a visually stunning but emotionally hollow effort from the Rogue One director that mistakes its inspired vision of a new kind of sci-fi world for greatness. It’s clear that, in its bid to become the first original sci-fi movie in years, The Creator is just a half-baked pastiche of much better sci-fi before it — and one with a much more confused message than it obviously intended.
David Rooney of THR says the film’s message of interspecies harmony is telegraphed with such insistence that it ends up feeling fabricated. Rooney says:
A big, brawny original sci-fi movie is a rare thing in the age of franchise branding, which makes you root for Gareth Edwards’ The Creator, an admirably ambitious endeavor, stuffed with imposing visuals, impressive design work and nifty tech hardware. But this future-world action thriller about a war between humankind and artificial intelligence feels like a lot of movies scrunched together, most of them familiar. A dull lead, a wishy-washy vein of ersatz spirituality, racial optics by turns uneasy and pandering and the usual chaotic plotting don’t help. Even the charm of an enigmatic robo-kid only goes so far.
However, not everybody shared these critics' opinions.
Others Say The Creator Is Thought-Provoking And Timely
Pete Hammond of Deadline praises 7-year-old newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles for stealing the movie with a performance that would be impressive from an actor of any age. The movie overall is thought-provoking and timely, Hammond says, continuing:
What The Creator is really about is what it means to be human, our fading connections to each other, and perhaps the need to create ‘beings’ of the robotic variety that might stand in for the lack of empathy we have with our own species. A perfect metaphor for the divisiveness of the current political climate, it is also about trust, bonding, grief, and hope in a future that is dicey at best. Most of all, whether by intention or accident, this is as timely a movie entertainment as they get with a scenario that seems all too possible in the not-so-far off future. It is one of the most thought-provoking movies in some time, one to which attention must be paid.
Brian Truitt of USA TODAY rates The Creator 3.5 stars out of 4, and while he agrees that the co-writers’ influences are obvious, from Star Wars to Apocalypse Now, Gareth Edwards’ film feels “extraordinarily original.” Truitt continues:
The filmmaker again takes a thought-provoking look at humanity, this time through a futuristic lens with The Creator. The moving and eye-popping thriller, starring a never-better John David Washington, dives into the hot-button topic of artificial intelligence but more importantly mankind's tendency toward war and how we treat those different than us.
The critics may not be in consensus about how much they enjoyed the movie, but there seem to be plenty of positive things to say about the visual effects, and original or not, The Creator tackles the timely issue of artificial intelligence. So if this movie sounds up your alley, you’ll be able to see it on the big screen starting Friday, September 29. You can also check out our 2023 movie calendar to see what else is coming soon to theaters.
