The best sci-fi blockbuster of the year has arrived.

Score: 4.5/5

Coming off of Rogue One, writer-director Gareth Edwards probably had the opportunity to make anything. A billion-dollar grossing movie gives you the benefit that most artists only dream of, and instead of rushing to make his dream project, he took his time. Seven years later, that patience has paid off with a moving story backdropped by a powerfully rich sci-fi setting. For that is The Creator in a nutshell, a sci-fi lover’s dense, interesting world, telling a story about a broken man and a child he must come to terms with protecting.

Yes, I will concede that the father-child dynamic story has been played out in media in the last decade or so, which for some will mean this movie doesn’t hit the emotional beats as hard as it would otherwise. Where it comes down to then is in execution, and for me, this movie nailed it by the end. More specifically, actors John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles nailed it.

Loosley, the story of The Creator, follows former solider Joshua, played by Washington, in a world where robots and humans are at war, as he is tasked with finding the robot’s secret weapon that is rumored to have the power to destroy humanities military superiority in the form of a massive space station called NOMAD. The conundrum for Joshua is that this “weapon” is in the form of an innocent robot child. In this world, robots and AI are not like Skynet from The Terminator, hell-bent on destroying humanity. They are more like another minority that is being crushed under the weight of human regimes that are afraid of what AI represents to their current status of power. So where the United States military sees this child as the end of the world, the southeastern tip of Asia, dubbed New Asia in the 2060s of this movie, sees the child as a savior to put an end to the bloodshed and allow humans and robots to live in peace.

A quick note: the movie refers to the robots of this world as AI, but with today’s current landscape of AI-power software, like chatGPT, I thought it would be important to drive home the point that there isn’t some hive-mind all-powerful computer that is controlling every robot and machine to do its bidding. These robots all have their own lives, personalities, and decision-making. They are more or less a new sentient species.

Sorry if that all seems a bit dense story-wise, but that is part of what makes this movie so interesting. There are a lot of world-building and interesting ideas at play in the world of The Creator. With all of that backdrop out of the way, Joshua is a shell of a man, grasping at straws to get back something he lost, and is given the impression that this robot child that he names Alphie will help him get what he so desperately desires. As the movie plays out, he will come to understand how misguided he has been about AI and about his relationship with Alphie.

This works so well because of actor Madeleine Yuna Voyles. She IS the heart of this movie, and she deserves all the credit in the world. To say that she will tug at your emotions is an understatement. She gave such a moving performance that brought tears to my eyes. The cast as a whole is filled with top-notch actors. You can never go wrong with the legendary Ken Watanabe, and this was another opportunity for the world to see Gemma Chan after the Eternals misfire with audiences. Even the overly mustache-twirling villains Colonel Howell and McBride, played by Allison Janney and Marc Menchaca, respectively, had their place.

That isn’t to say I was perfectly on board with the flow of events. This is a movie that, beyond its impressive world, is built on the foundation of that important relationship between Joshua and Alphie. It works, but it falls victim to the same issue so many stories do: it must move too fast. The movie’s runtime is two hours and thirteen minutes, but it feels much quicker than that. This has heady ideas but is still a blockbuster, moving from one action scene to the next. It’s a tough balance to let characters breathe versus keeping the general audience entertained, and it mostly works. I personally would have loved a three-hour cut of this film to give more slow moments for Joshua, Alphie, and between the two. It’s also clear by the story structure, which tells the story through specific sections signified by title cards, that there would have been opportunities to add another section or two. I get it, though. For most, three hours is too long.

Before I close out my thoughts on this movie, I have to call out the amazing visuals. This movie looks very beautiful. Gareth Edwards’ approach on how to shoot this movie and how to handle special effects pays off big time. I noticed maybe only one scene that looked a little out of place, but 99% of the time, this movie’s special effects just worked. Shooting in real-world locations, and however they pulled off the robot-human hybrid look, significantly helped in allowing me to connect to what was playing out on screen. Where other big studio blockbusters are getting worse returns for their massive budgets and overworked effects departments, this movie looked sharp and consistent.

All this is to say, while not a perfect movie, I loved everything that The Creator brought to the table. The emotional weight, a deep sci-fi world, and visuals that add rather than detract to the experience. For me, this is the best sci-fi movie the year has to offer and is totally worth checking out on a big screen.