Against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds the secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child.

In a cinematic landscape of sequels, franchises and cheap horror movies it is becoming increasingly rare to see bold and ambitious filmmaking endeavours outside of directors with a proven track record (i.e. Christopher Nolan). That makes ‘The Creator’ both a rarity and exciting – an original science fiction drama from Gareth Edwards who burst on to the scene with the low budget ‘Monsters’ before making ‘Godzilla’ and the best modern ‘Star Wars’ movie in ‘Rogue One’.

‘The Creator’ takes place 50 years in the future, in a world where artificial intelligence has become commonplace and has recently led to a nuclear detonation over Los Angeles. This has driven the U.S. government to set out on a war to destroy all artificial intelligence in order to protect humanity. To help it achieve these aims, an ex-special forces agent (John David Washington) is hired to hunt down and kill the mysterious ‘Creator’. When he discovers the ‘Creator’ may be a young girl, it forces him to question his morals and whether he is really on the right side of this situation, and this plays out over the course of the movie.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most important topics and developments of our time and this is one of the first modern pieces of science fiction to try and reckon with what that means for humanity on a broad, epic canvas. The movie takes place mostly in ‘New Asia’ (filmed in Thailand) where A.I. is still in use, and that provides scope for Edwards to touch on themes relevant to today regarding U.S. involvement in wars in foreign countries. This is a very impressively made film with good action sequences and a story that attempts to take on large, weighty themes, and that is where I felt it faltered somewhat. For all its originality and ambition it can’t help but feel like a mash up of a number of futuristic sci-fi thrillers with a dose of Vietnam War thrown in, and I felt Edwards struggled to bring all of these elements together into a story that worked consistently.

It is great to see a filmmaker willing to swing high and attempt to make something original, ambitious and thought provoking and while ‘The Creator’ wasn’t quite as entertaining or as brilliant as I hoped it would be, it is still an impressive piece of world building willing to tackle the important themes of our time.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Gareth Edwards

Starring: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Ralph Ineson, Marc Menchaca, Sturgill Simpson and Ken Watanabe

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt11858890/