(film review) - The Creator

He came on the scene and a lot of people were wondering, "John David Washington, is he as good as his father? Is he trying to ride the coat-tails of his father? What is he going to bring to the acting table?" You could say, he has big shoes to fill, but with everything I have seen him in, JDW seems to be carving out a filmography for himself where, some may not hit well, but he is really good in the role. This would be his 13th film role. Starting in Malcolm X with his father, then Devil with the Blue Dress and then Book of Eli as a co-producer. Since then, JDW has been in BlackkKlansman, Tenet, Malcolm and Marie, all great films, so JDW is starting to become a household name. The Creator though, this is something different. And if I do say so myself, JDW was great in this. Joshua is an undercover operative in a war between humans and artificial intelligence who is tasked to seek out and locate a new weapon created by Nirmata, a mysterious chief architect of the AI machines and a machine called 'Alpha O' which is believed to have the capabilities of taking out a USS orbital weapon named the North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defence (NOMAD). When Joshua discovers Alpha O on a mission, Joshua discovers the simulant to be a little girl and must decide whether he should kill the little girl or follow his heart. Gareth Edwards has not done many films at all, Monsters, Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and now this. While I do recall things being said about Rogue One regarding his involvement with Tony Gilroy, The Creator shows us where we are with Gareth and exactly what he is capable of. The Creator is a few films fused into one, but delivered in such a great way in regards to storytelling and visuals. Yes, the story is not groundbreaking, but it is told in a way where it is upto the audience to decide who is the bad guy? Morality. Ethics. What we do as people, humans on this earth and how we treat each other, view each other and behave when we do not understand or wish to understand. The film is masterfully crafted giving us breathtaking visuals and special effects which simply looked amazing considering the budget. I have watched movies that were a lot more money and the special effects and graphics were nowhere near as clean as this. The character designs were amazing and some of the designs added lent to some comedic moments in a film that is fairly serious in tone as it tackles the subject matter of trained/learned behaviour. The music is great, Hans Zimmer has a catalogue of scores that pair well with his films and this is simply just another one to add to his ever growing catalogue. The acting, superb. John David Washington's performance here is great and whilst you can close your eyes and hear his father, John exudes confidence and charisma that gels well with the actors around him as well as Madeleine Yuna Voyles who plays Alpha O. She is great and helps to carry the emotional moments within the movie throughout. Seeing Ken Watanabe is always great, along with Gemma Chan. Short roles but they did a great job with carrying the story. This film reminds me of 'A Quiet Place' for the sheer fact that, while the events of this film takes places mostly in Los Angeles and New Asia, what are the other stories across the globe? Are there other pockets of factions fighting wars on their turf? Is it simply just the Americans being Americans (in films like this) or is there a British Army, Korean Army, German Army fighting "Rogue A.I" as well? I would love to see a sequel where Alpha O possibly meets another version like her who is the exact opposite built from the same schematics and raised in a way where they continue to perpetuate the war. There are soo much possibilities with this movie and considering the movie was made for a quarter of what movies are made for these days, hoping the studio make their money back, I am hoping they can push forward for another excellent movie. Something a little longer. Something with a bit more tragedy and moral dilemmas. Something that challenges the audience and pushes us to feel emotions about the things we do. Whilst this film did some of these things, they were considerably light and with the rise of AI and all the stories which have already been told, I feel we could have a great franchise here for the ages.