******SYNTHETIC SPOILERS!******

Directed and cowritten by Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One,” “Godzilla”) with occasional collaborator Chris Weitz, “The Creator” was a movie I was curious to see late last year during its theatrical run.  Unfortunately, events conspired to prevent that from happening, and it was gone from theaters before I had the chance. The trailer looked interesting, and I’m usually up for a good artificial intelligence story, particularly one coming from Gareth Edwards.  While Edwards’ 2014 reboot of “Godzilla” was a bit flat emotionally (an issue with the entire Monarch monster universe), his “Rogue One” was arguably the best Star Wars movie since the original trilogy.

Thanks to my Hulu account, which has gathered a bit of dust of late, I finally got around to enjoying this one via a new laser projector, with an HD image beamed to a 7 ft/2 meter screen in a darkened room, which gave me more than an adequate approximation of a true theatrical experience. 

“The Creator” 

The movie opens in a cozy safe house on a beach in “New Asia” in the late 21st century, where US Army intelligence agent Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) is sharing an affectionate evening with his pregnant wife, Maya (Gemma Chan), as they kid each other about what their expectant baby will look like.  Unfortunately, this idyllic marriage isn’t quite what it seems, as Joshua is an undercover Army officer on a mission to locate the “Nirmata,” a mysterious engineer working to advance artificial intelligence with a new project.  The United States is at war with countries harboring artificial intelligence—which includes sentient worker/soldier robots and humanoid ‘simulants’—following a devastating nuclear strike on Los Angeles ten years earlier, in 2055.

Note: Actor John David Washington is the son of legendary actor and Oscar-winner Denzel Washington (“Malcolm X,” “Philadelphia,” “Crimson Tide”), while Gemma Chan (“Maya”) is an actress with some familiarity in artificial intelligence, having played “Mia” in the highly underrated British TV series “HUMANS,” an adaptation of the Swedish TV series, “Real Humans.” 

With the massive US orbital military platform called NOMAD (North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense) hovering overhead in the night sky, a surgical strike team is deployed, and Joshua’s cover is blown to the shock and horror of Maya, who is also hiding a secret; she is the very “Nirmata” (Sanskrit for “Creator”) he and the tactical strike team are seeking.  As synthetic soldiers rack up casualties for the human forces, the entire area is bombarded by a massive airstrike from NOMAD, with Maya apparently killed in an explosion.  Joshua has lost his wife and unborn child in a single devastating night.

Note: Fiction 101: If you don’t see a body, the character is most likely not dead. The orbital US military platform NOMAD is also this movie’s Death Star; a not surprising feature from the director of “Rogue One,” a deservedly popular Star Wars prequel concerning the deadly completion of the Empire’s ultimate weapon, before it is eventually obliterated in the climax of “A New Hope.” 

The movie then jumps back to provide some backstory into this universe of 40-odd years from now. We see a montage of retro 1960s-style ads promoting the creation and use of artificial intelligence robots as servants, cops, soldiers, and many other jobs previously held by humans. We even see ads that promise vain humans the ability to transfer their own likenesses onto simulant bodies…

Note: Using the motto of the Tyrell Corporation from 1982’s “Blade Runner,” we see one such retro-styled ad promising these new humanoid ‘simulants’ will be “more human than human.” With its use of bulky CRT monitors and 1960s-style ads, “The Creator” seems to exist in a timeline similar to the alternate future of “Blade Runner 2049.”

Things go horribly awry when a nuclear weapon is detonated over 2055 Los Angeles (à la “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”), presumably by rogue AIs, which inaugurates a permanent ban and a forever war against artificial intelligence.  This war extends to those countries that harbor AIs too, such as “New Asia,” a coalition of Southeast Asian nations, including Japan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Taiwan, Nepal, and India. In response, the US military creates the massive orbital platform NOMAD, which can hover over any enemy target across the world, and deploy devastating strikes to those nations living in peace with advanced cybernetic life-forms.

Note: The movie’s war against AI is very similar to the Battlestar Galactica spinoff “Caprica” (2008), which saw the initial development of the Cylons as a subservient race of robots created by the humans inhabiting the twelve colonies; those robots eventually rebelled and turned on their masters in a brutal uprising. A similar backstory was also given to the “Kaylons” of The Orville as well (“From Unknown Graves”).

Five years after his wife and child were killed in New Asia, we see Joshua working as part of a cleanup crew in Los Angeles, which is still collecting robotic corpses and disposing of them. One of the hazmat workers on Joshua’s crew is traumatized after one of the dead robots is briefly reactivated, and it screams pitifully for its loved ones.  Joshua tries to calm his coworker down by reminding her the cries she hears are “just programming,” and nothing more. 

Note: Joshua wears a robotic right arm and left leg, which he lost in the Los Angeles bombing, along with his parents and siblings. Joshua’s prosthetics can respond to his neural impulses as easily as flesh and bone, and even allowed him to serve in the military, as we saw in the opening act. Ironic that Joshua, a man once used by the military to seek out and destroy AIs, uses high tech robotic prostheses to make himself whole again.  His body itself represents the kind of symbiosis that New Asia seeks with its AIs, despite repeated attempts to break them by the US military, which is clearly “the Empire” of this film.

Later that night, as Joshua relaxes in his apartment building’s pool, he is met by Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) and NOMAD commander General Andrews (Ralph Ineson), who seek to recruit him once again for a top-secret mission into New Asia to find the creator of a new weapon known only as Alpha-O; a weapon that might turn the tide of the war in favor of the AIs.  Joshua wants nothing to do with the military, which left him still grieving the loss of his wife and unborn child.  Howell and Andrews turn the screws by playing a holographic recording allegedly obtained from intelligence in New Asia that shows Maya alive and well.  If the mission is successful, he might have a chance at reuniting with his wife and child, who were both presumed dead. Joshua takes the assignment…

Note: A couple of things puzzled me about the recruitment scene.  Given Joshua’s clear bias and his falling out with the military for the death of his wife, would he really be the best soldier for this assignment?  Not to mention that Col. Howell beams ‘top-secret’ holographic footage of Maya in New Asia across the apartment complex’s swimming pool.  Am I the only one who thought this wasn’t terribly discreet of her?  I mean, couldn’t she have shown him that footage somewhere more private, like inside of his apartment? 

As the team gets underway, Joshua gets to know Col. Howell, who is commanding the strike team in situ.  Howell opens up to Joshua, telling him a story about the loss of her sons during the war. Upon landing in the surrounding beachside jungles of New Asia, the strike team begins indiscriminately shooting and blasting their way through robots, simulants and humans to find the fortified compound where the Alpha-O weapon is believed to be located.

Note: Howell’s story about her lost sons may or may not be true, since we later see how manipulative she can be when it comes to fulfilling the mission objective, despite her incompetence at accomplishing it.

Inside the compound, Joshua is separated from his cruel comrade McBride (Marc Menchaca), as he enters a large vault-like research area where he meets a young simulant girl (Madeline Yuna Voyles) sitting in a chair watching TV.  The simulant girl is “Alpha,” the dreaded weapon sought by the US team.  Joshua however, only sees a young girl. Immediately sympathetic to the child he dubs “Alphie,” Joshua (predictably) disobeys orders, taking her with him, as the two of them break out of the research facility. 

Note: The idea of a small, sweet-faced child who may or may not be a deadly weapon was also the subject of the recent Korean sci-fi movie, “Space Sweepers” (2021), though it was played a lot more tongue-in-cheek than in this grittier, more serious film. There are also similarities with “The Mandalorian,” which features another gruff guardian taking care of an adorable super-powered child.

Once free, Joshua hopes to locate his former commanding officer Drew (Sturgill Simpson), who “went native” in New Asia a years ago. Joshua disguises Alphie’s mechanical neck and head with a knitted hoodie, as the two catch various forms of transportation, nervously going through police checkpoints along the way. Joshua experiences Alphie’s unique ability to remotely control devices, causing them to power up or down at will. This talent of hers helps them negate the authorities on several occasions.  Soon, the two manage to find Drew’s apartment in a nearby city, where he lives with a simulant girlfriend Kami (Veronica Ngo), who takes an immediate liking to Alphie. Drew examines Alphie, and tells Joshua that her ability to remotely control objects is becoming exponentially more powerful.

Note: As an ex-soldier ‘gone native,’ the sympathetic character of Drew foreshadows Joshua’s fate as well.

Unfortunately, Drew’s apartment is raided by local police, who are commandeered by the invading US military. During the raid, Kami is killed while Drew is gravely wounded.  Howell and McBride are quickly closing, as Joshua plans an escape for himself, Alphie and the dying Drew. The trio manage to escape in a rusty old pickup truck, with which they manage to get through another police checkpoint. With Drew hiding in the space behind the truck’s seats, he gives Joshua the beacon for New Asia’s revered Nirmata—who is revealed to be Joshua’s wife, Maya.  Drew succumbs to his injuries, as fugitives Joshua and Alphie are then strategically captured by New Asian forces, led by simulant Harun (Ken Watanabe). 

Note: Ken Watanabe, a popular Japanese actor, is perhaps best known to American audiences for his role in “The Last Samurai” (2003).  Director Gareth Edwards cast Watanabe in the role of the ill-fated Dr. Serizawa in the 2014 US reboot of “Godzilla.” Unfortunately, the reimagined version of Serizawa was not nearly as compelling as the tortured, eyepatch-wearing same-named scientist (played by Ahkihiko Hirata) from the original 1954 Japanese version of “Gojira.”

Joshua and Alphie find temporary refuge during their captivity with Harun’s forces—a combination of robots, simulants and native humans, who believe that AIs are simply another evolutionary step of the human race (just as Cro-Magnon humans outlived the Neanderthals). Harun also tells Joshua that the nuclear bomb which devastated Los Angeles in 2055 was caused by a human coding error, not AIs, who became scapegoats afterward.  The AIs living in New Asia wish only to coexist peacefully with the human race, not destroy it. 

Note: The revelation that humans were responsible for the accidental bombing of Los Angeles is big, but it’s casually dropped in expositional dialogue from Harun. I wish the details of this “coding error” had more time to breathe within the movie, but unfortunately, this important story point is tucked into a ‘go to the bathroom and you’ll miss it’ scene.

Unfortunately, Col. Howell and McBride are not far behind, as they lead a massive invasion force sent by NOMAD. With US mobile ground assault vehicles the size of buildings plowing through the ramshackle housing of the locals, Harun and his forces are driven out of their relative safe zone.  Joshua and Alphie manage to escape Harun’s custody, but they find themselves in common cause with Harun’s forces when the village is overrun by NOMAD reinforcements; forcing them into a bottlenecked retreat across a wooden bridge…

Note: Director and cowriter Gareth Edwards clearly has a lot to say about the misuse of American military might, as the sight of massive tank-like vehicles plowing indiscriminately through the village is a thinly-veiled sci-fi analog of US military invasions of Vietnam and other countries, including the misguided 2003 invasion of Iraq; a grave tactical and policy mistake with repercussions still being felt across the world, 21 years later. 

With Harun’s forces making their stand on the bridge, US suicide robots are deployed.  One such robot is placed under Alphie’s remote control and is prevented from detonating its payload of explosives, until McBride sneaks in and wounds Alphie. The injury distracts her from controlling the suicide robot, which resumes its deadly countdown. 

Note: There’s a gallows humor moment in the movie as the suicide robots deployed by Col. Howell are each programmed to say “it’s been an honor to serve” with her before they’re sent to explode; even these disposable machines are made to stroke the egos of their commanding officers before they’re blown up.

The unconscious Alphie is once again rescued by Joshua, who realizes the only hope of saving her is to resume his quest for his wife Maya. He uses the beacon to locate the Nirmata, who is kept in a temple deep within the village…

Note: The pacing of this middle act is a bit too protracted. It’s not exactly a revelation that Maya is the revered Nirmata, so the quest to find her slows things down a bit more than is necessary.  The movie’s quest for the Nirmata was clearly inspired by 1979’s “Apocalypse Now” (a Vietnam-era retelling of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella “Heart of Darkness”) which follows Capt. Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) on a perilous quest in war-ravaged Vietnam on a quest to assassinate Col. Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a rogue US officer who’s revered with a near-religious fervor by Khmer troops in a remote Cambodian outpost. “The Creator” however, rejects the cynicism of its inspiration, while retaining its Vietnam War-inspired trappings.

Eventually, Joshua and Alphie reach the temple, where they find that Maya has been in a coma, or “stranded,” (as the attendant monks say) since the raid five years ago. Harun says that the simulant monks are not able to end her life, so they’ve kept her alive on support mechanisms instead.  It’s here that Joshua learns Alphie was based on DNA from Maya’s unborn daughter (Joshua’s daughter as well), which was scanned in-utero before it died.  Offering his wife the peace the monks can’t give, Joshua pulls her off life-support and lets her die. A copy of her mind has also been duplicated and saved to a memory chip. The family reunion is disrupted by Col. Howell and her forces, who are killed by Harun, who then tells Joshua that the only way for peace is the destruction of NOMAD.  Joshua is then captured by US forces, who are led to believe that the ex-soldier fulfilled his mission by capturing the ‘weapon’ and killing the Nirmata, which is only circumstantially true…

Note: It’s in this scene that the movie’s title is revealed to have a double meaning. Yes, Maya is the creator of Alphie, but in a broader sense, so is Joshua, since Alphie was scanned and based on the unborn daughter of both Maya and himself. 

Taken into a Los Angeles area command center, Joshua is reunited with General Andrews, who believes Joshua to be a returning hero, due to a lack of surviving witnesses.  Andrews then tasks Joshua with personally terminating the “weapon” Alphie by holding an electromagnetic pulse gun to her head.  Out of the general’s earshot, Joshua reassures his ‘daughter’ that he’s set the weapon to stun.  With Alphie appearing dead, Joshua exits and saves her ‘corpse’ from being dumped in an incinerator. Andrews realizes he’s been duped, but not before Joshua and Alphie manage to escape to Los Angeles Spaceport, a futuristic version of LAX.  As their scramjet spaceship begins its ascent to the moon, a recovered Alphie gains control of the spacecraft and forces it to land on NOMAD instead.

Note: While many of the secondary characters are either shortchanged as ciphers or clichés, John David Washington and Madeline Yuna Voyles (a child actor in a remarkable debut performance) really pour on the dramatic fireworks as Joshua and Alphie. Just try not to tear up when Alphie’s lip trembles as her ‘father’ holds the EMP weapon to her head. 

With the confused shuttle’s passengers forced to disembark on NOMAD, Joshua and Alphie improvise a plan to take out the deadly nuclear weapons platform as it moves onto targets across the globe.  Taylor manages to set a timed explosive device, as Alphie summons all of her will to short out NOMAD’s power. The disembarked passengers of the spaceplane rush to escape pods, along with NOMAD support crews.  As Joshua plans to join Alphie in a pod, an enraged General Andrews activates a deadly tentacled robot to prevent him from joining Alphie, who sobs as her ‘father’ forces her to save herself.  The pod ejects, and Alphie falls safely to Earth. 

Note: British actor Ralph Ineson (“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1”), who plays General Andrews, has a very very deep voice; I could even feel a slight vibration in my armchair coming from the speakers whenever he spoke. 

Injured in the tentacled robot’s attack, Joshua finds a bay of dormant simulants (probably used by NOMAD for infiltration missions), where he finds a likeness of Maya. He then uses the memory stick to download Maya’s consciousness into it.  The simulant of Maya comes to life, instantly recognizing her ‘husband.’ The two then enjoy a brief, heartfelt reunion in the ship’s hydroponics bays, as the NOMAD spacecraft finally detonates in a nuclear fireball…

Note: The final battle aboard NOMAD follows a few of the same beats as Gareth Edwards’ “Rogue One”; we see two lead characters die in an explosive embrace, having finally done what they can to stop a deadly space-based weapon.  Even the tropical New Asia locales of the movie (filmed on location in the lush greenery of Thailand and Cambodia) are not geographically dissimilar to the beachside Imperial base on the planet ‘Scarif’ (filmed at the Laamu Atoll of Maldives).  Even the robots used by both the US Army and New Asia resistance would not look at all out of place in the Star Wars universe.

Alphie’s pod lands, and she joins the people in a joyous celebration as they witness the destruction of NOMAD overhead.  The cheering little girl is a hero to New Asia, and its diverse inhabitants—organic and synthetic alike. 

Note: Here’s hoping the US military takes the defeat in stride, and doesn’t spent umpteen kajillion dollars to create a NOMAD 2.  While “The Creator” isn’t the first movie to deal with benign artificial intelligence (“A.I: Artificial Intelligence,” “Short Circuit,” “Bicentennial Man,” etc), it is one of the first I’ve seen to place blame for the robotic apocalypse squarely on the shoulders of human beings instead of AI. The movie’s tantalizing reveal of a human ‘coding error’ causing the Los Angeles disaster is not explored enough, leaving much material for a sequel (or prequel).

The End.

Summing It Up

At a time of increased concern over AI misuse in our own society, “The Creator” depicts a dystopia where AIs are not the bad guys—humans are.  Unlike the roving endoskeletons and sinister AI seen in the “Terminator” movies, the synthetics of “The Creator” possess that same basic drive common to all living creatures; the desire to live. They don’t seek existence at the expense of humanity, but in harmony with it. Even the movie’s hero uses mechanical prostheses to make himself whole again, exemplifying biological and synthetic symbiosis.

There’s a jarring scene early on in the movie where a woman witnesses a reactivated robotic corpse, only to freak out after she hears it pitifully crying out for its loved ones.  She’s told that it’s “just programming” and “not real,” ignoring that our own feelings and emotions are resultant ‘programming’ of our own DNA. It brings to mind a quote from the underrated movie, “2010: The Year We Make Contact”: “Whether we are based on carbon or silicon, it makes no fundamental difference.  We should each be treated with appropriate respect.” Perhaps in the future, the phrase “love is love” will be augmented with “life is life.” 

While the movie’s many metaphors of American imperialism and exploitation are not exactly subtle, they are also, sadly, all-too fitting. Placing the bulk of the movie’s action in “New Asia” creates a direct analog to the Vietnam War (which burst its borders into Cambodia and Laos). In a broader sense, “The Creator” addresses the atrocities of many recent wars.

That we later learn the devastating destruction of Los Angeles was caused by a human coding error—and not AI—also brings to mind the false rationale (the infamous “yellow cake”) for the US invasion of Iraq; a disastrous decision that continues to haunt the world to this day. “The Creator” is a mirror to our dehumanizing treatment of our own species, and our intolerances for its many natural variations.

Combining elements of “Blade Runner,” “Lone Wolf and Cub” and “Apocalypse Now,” “The Creator” is certainly not a perfect film; the midsection slogs a bit, and secondary characters are sometimes little more than walking clichés, but its metaphors of wars past and present serve as reminders that acting humanely may not be confined to human beings. That trait might be passed onto our synthetic progeny, even as we let it atrophy in ourselves. 

How we someday treat these intelligent products of our technology may come to define us as a species. One hopes the human race won’t choose to be a lousy parent.

Where To Watch

“The Creator” is currently available for streaming on Hulu, and is available for digital rental/purchase from Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Vudu, and AppleTV.  It’s also available for purchase on physical media (DVD/BluRay) from Amazon and other retailers (prices vary by seller).