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A Complete Unknown is far from the worst thing you'll see this Christmas season, and many people will probably like it simply because of the various performances.
Posted in: 20th Century Studios, Kaitlyn Booth, Movies | Tagged: 20th century studios, gareth edwards, the creator
The Creator Review: Very Good Sci-Fi That Falls Just Short Of Great
The Creator is a bold and often beautiful piece of high-concept science fiction that is very good but can't quite cross the finish line into extraordinary.
The Creator is a bold and often beautiful piece of high-concept science fiction that is very good but can't quite cross the finish line into extraordinary.
Director: Gareth Edwards
Summary: 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.
High-concept science fiction is a genre that can be very hard to pull off. It's about walking a very fine line between showing us a world that could be right around the corner and trying not to veer too far into parody. They tend to be a little longer when it comes to runtime and, often have less action and feature more meditative thoughts about the human condition. It's not a genre for everyone, and that is fine. If high-concept science fiction isn't something you're into, there is a good chance that The Creator won't be the film to convert you to a believer. However, to the already converted, it's a very good entry into a genre that feels utterly barren of anything original these days. While the film often skirts close to being excellent, there are just a few things that it can't quite get right that keep it from being the masterpiece that was just beyond the horizon.
The world that Gareth Edwards created with Chris Weitz is an utterly fascinating one, where they take all of the trope you expect from a movie about rogue AI and turn it on its head. This is not the world of the Terminators, even if both of these worlds kicked off similarly. As the reality of AI becomes something we must grapple with, and as multiple unions are either actively striking, starting to strike, or just coming to the end of a strike, all with significant concerns over AI, the question of what this will mean for the future of the world is the one The Creator wants to answer. The moments when the film takes the time away from any action set pieces and slows down to explore what this world is and how we got here are the moments when the film shines. It makes it all the more jarring when the film reverts to something much more conventional for a modern-day science fiction movie, and that change in tone becomes even worse once the film gets to the ending.
The ending, the actual final scenes of the film, don't feel like they are part of the same movie we just spent two hours watching. It's an utterly baffling choice and seems to shy away from everything we spent all this time doing into something incredibly dull and predictable. Does The Creator need to reinvent tropes or science fiction to be good? Not at all; many of the things it does are things you can see coming a mile away. However, when the film is doing it within the confines of this world it has created and isn't trying to be a traditional action movie, the tropes don't matter because everything is so well presented. The ending isn't even well presented, well done, and is utterly predictable in a way that isn't good. It doesn't fit with the rest of the movie we have been watching, and the tone and presentation of the final scenes felt like something out of a late '90s alien film instead of this.
It's strange because while the middle of the film is where the best moments are, it also feels like it's either too long or not long enough. There are entire aspects of this society and world that aren't addressed that would have been interesting to explore. Instead, we have to do a lot of blink-and-you-'ll-miss-it worldbuilding. That's a shame because the world of The Creator is worth exploring. The film either should have shaved off some of the traditional action beats to make it much tighter, or it should have completely gone for it and had a three-hour runtime. It feels clunky at two hours and thirteen minutes, and that ending doesn't help alleviate that.
A lot has been made about the fact that this film has a budget of $80 million and what Edwards has managed to do with a budget like that. Compared to what we saw some films that have pushed North of $300 million look like this year, it's clear that Edwards spent every single penny that 20th Century Studios gave him wisely. That likely comes from the fact that he has learned, throughout two major blockbusters, how utterly broken blockbuster filmmaking is in its current state. The Creator is Edwards and his team showing up and declaring that you can have a beautiful, stunning, science-fiction world with characters augmented by VFX that feel as real as you or me, and you don't have to bankrupt anyone. This film will be held up at the new gold standard for studio filmmaking done right, and it will be tough for every other major film this year to justify not looking as good as The Creator with more than double the budget.
It helps that Edwards is an excellent director who has only continued to improve each movie he works on. He still made the best Star Wars movie [don't @ me], and now he has shown that he can take the original science fiction ideas he only got to barely play with in Monsters and bring them to this and elevate them. The cast working at the top of their game also helps a lot. John David Washington was a bit awkward in Tenet and is still the weakest link here. However, an excellent performance is hidden in there; the right director and script will pull it out of him. This one wasn't quite it. That is to be expected when you act opposite Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney. Gemma Chan is also lovely in this, but her role is limited, and we don't get that much of her.
The standout, however, is Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie. Acting circles around a bunch of adults takes a lot, but Voyles does it flawlessly. Alphie might be one of the best movie kids in a long time, and she is also beautifully realized. Both innocent and far too wise for her own good, Voyles manages to capture that effortlessly. She's a movie star in the making. She can and will break your heart in this film multiple times, and you'll sit there and enjoy it.
The Creator does many things right; it does nearly everything right, but there are a few places where it stumbles, and the film isn't quite able to achieve the heights it could have. In some ways, it makes The Creator more frustrating than a bad or even mediocre film because you can see the greatness; it's right there, but it's just out of reach. That lost potential might be the worst part of The Creator not completely sticking the landing. However, when it comes to high-concept science fiction, this is a very good offering, and if that interests you? It's enough to fill you up, even if you wish there was a perfect dessert to finish it off.
The Creator
8.5/10
The Creator does many things right; it does nearly everything right, but there are a few places where it stumbles, and the film isn't quite able to achieve the heights it could have.
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