The Creator

The Creator is a great technical achievement considering its budget of "only" 80 million dollars, because its magnificent visuals and production design put all those overpriced and computer-artificial sci-fi films of recent years to shame. Unfortunately, the same enthusiasm cannot be shared on the part of the script, the skeleton of which is a tired scheme that relies on so many coincidences and convenient strange decisions by the characters that it makes your head spin if you give it some thought. And it's a great pity, I would like to root for it. (11/21/2023)

I would never cast young Washington in a leading role again, his acting bad (and I'm taking off one star for that). Otherwise I found this film terribly rich, both visually and emotionally. Gareth Edwards takes us through several locations with a succession of gorgeous images, whether it's a city with dozens of glowing neon signs like in Blade Runner, an Asian landscape where ancient Buddhist culture clashes interestingly with modern sci-fi elements, or the Nomad super spacecraft that Kosinski seems to have invented for Oblivion. I was especially impressed with Asia and how thoughtfully and seamlessly the modern architecture builds on the old buildings, creating such an interesting contrast, and the viewer immersion is incredible. I'm not a fan of AI, but I still didn't mind that Edwards relativizes it and actually puts it in the position of a positive element, just like Blade Runner did 40 years ago, the story thus gets a charge that kept my attention throughout and the few logical lapses didn't ruin it for me. Unfortunately, Edwards is a misunderstood filmmaker. Whether it is with Godzilla, which was a clever homage to the TOHO's films, or here, with the heavy-duty sci-fi that isn't being made much these days. I can only be comforted by the fact that Blade Runner was also critically panned and rejected by audiences in its day, so .... maybe it'll come out in a few decades too, Gareth. (11/26/2023)

Why was such a mundane story set in such an amazing world, why did I not care about the characters, and why was the ending so drawn out as to be almost annoying? Gareth Edwards couldn't build (and tear down) on the foundations of Godzilla or Star Wars Rogue One, and this time he came up with something of his own. Unfortunately, he didn't quite succeed. The story is about as dull as the Hans Zimmer music that accompanies it, and if it weren't for the technical flourishes that rival Avatar and that kept me entertained pretty much nonstop, The Creator would have been a mediocre attempt at sci-fi with an idea. I got the urge to watch Blomkamp's Elysium, which is similar in some ways, but it didn't play at anything. (09/30/2023)

A film whose creators stutter, can’t remember the beginning of a sentence and constantly run the gamut from “original sci-fi” to clichés and desperate banalities that mask one thing: The Creator says nothing relevant about the phenomenon of AI, which is merely another spectacular decorative element in a film that’s completely dependent on design. Neither the plot nor the world of the film makes sense; given how much space The Creator has, it never creates a coherent and comprehensible world. By comparison, even the didactic Elysium comes across as an engrossing fictional world. Edwards’ directing tries to go in depth, but it rather unconvincingly jumps from details to the big picture, from the present to the past. Some of the actors’ lines really could have been written only by Chris Weitz... Washington plays an utterly two-dimensional character who, through his suffering, only reinforces the impression that The Creator demands grand emotions, to which he is absolutely not entitled. Instead, it has the same feelings of emptiness and lifelessness as Godzilla and Rogue One. (09/27/2023)

Creator was supposed to be the sci-fi hit of the year, but the actual result was almost unwatchable, I suffered unbelievably. In short, Gareth Edwards made a film that, in its style, evoked the Star Wars I hated. I was kind of hoping it would be something along the lines of Independence Day, only with UFOs replaced by an artificial intelligence, but I was sorely mistaken. The film gave me the impression that with 40 minutes gone by, I still didn't know what was going on, there was no introduction to the characters or plot, just one scene after another, with zero viewer engagement. It's like putting episode 6 of a random series and trying to get my bearings on the plot. I was absolutely not entertained by Washington, and the rest of the characters didn't engage me either. The action was dull, I found it to be childish and unexciting. There’s nothing epic, no wow moment, no suspense or atmosphere, just something happening and I didn't really care by halfway through the film, I just wanted it to end. In the end I'm glad I didn't go to the cinema, I've never seen more boring action sci-fi. Disappointment of the year. 3/10. (11/19/2023)