The Creator
20TH CENTURY STUDIOSThe story is more than familiar: a battle-scarred warrior is unwillingly paired with a vulnerable child, and with time they build an unbreakable bond. This trope is at the centre of Gareth Edwards’ latest film, The Creator, but many of its trappings prove to be much more interesting than what is on the surface.
At the centre of the action is Joshua Taylor (John David Washington), a military operative who has lost both life (his family) and limb (an arm and a leg) in the throes of war. After a painful parting with his wife, Maya (Gemma Chan), he puts himself at risk once again, taking on a high-risk mission just for the off chance he might see her again. His plans are derailed when he crosses paths with a child simulant he names “Alphie” (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), an elevated example of the technology he has been trained to destroy.
The journey the duo takes is punctuated with moments of frustration and fledgling tenderness, as well as unspeakable acts of organized violence. This film firmly plants itself on the side of rural villages being pushed to extremes in order to protect themselves. The atrocities Joshua and Alphie witness prod them into interfering and fighting back, even when it puts them in the crosshairs of the American military officials who hired Joshua in the first place (Ralph Ineson and Allison Janney).
If the film is an attempt to take familiar sci-fi tropes and subvert them through a non-Western lens, it’s an experiment that succeeds. The world-building is realistic, dense and believable, populated with characters and situations that veer closely to real-world conflicts. Most of the location shooting was in Thailand, employing locals as stand-ins for the attacks during battle scenes and bombings. During these sequences, it’s hard not to think about the U.S. military’s non-stop shelling of neighbouring countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, which took thousands of civilian lives.
These details aside, the main cast is what anchors the film and fleshes out the story’s expansive world. Ken Watanabe is reliable as always in the minor role of Harun, a simulant fighting on behalf of humans and robots alike. Likewise, Janney brings a moral ambiguity to her role that is both brittle and tragic. But ultimately the show belongs to Washington and Voyles, who bring everything they can to the table. Washington is much more at home here, thriving with a more emotional sci-fi arc in contrast with his reserved performance in Tenet.
It is incredible that a movie like The Creator was granted a wide release in America without any studio blowback. The main cast are people of color (and most of the white characters are antagonists), the U.S. Army is the unapologetic enemy and has an unrepentant anti-police sentiment throughout. Even if the police are robots, they come across as bullies or clowns, killing unarmed citizens at any given opportunity.
In fact, The Creator could be cited as the “anti-Top Gun: Maverick,” which, if anything, was a gushing letter to the U.S. military. It’s also worth noting that many of the main characters’ actions would be framed as terrorism to the American public, and most likely be used as a call to war. That is what makes this film an unexpected antidote to the cut-and-dried narratives of good battling evil in American genre films. It explores how acts of violence have different meanings for both sides, and either way the toll is unmistakably human. It’s all a matter of perspective. These questions made the film much more interesting because it’s grabbing for something deeper than most mainstream releases this year. Both Edwards and co-writer Chris Weitz are proving that they make franchise films to fund projects that are much more ambitious and complex. That’s something to be grateful for.