I’ve been agonising over writing this, primarily because I want these reviews to be about films I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. As a director I know only too well the Herculean effort required to make any movie, and resent film critics who take insensitive shots from a safe or close-minded distance. These critics do incredible damage to film.
Because of the stronghold the majors have on distribution, independent cinema has it that much harder. The same goes for director’s first films, which I believe need to by criticised with extra care. But THE CREATOR is neither, so is far from the endangered species list.
Regarding the film’s merits, Edward’s visual spectacle doesn't disappoint, being the technical wizard that he is. His $86 million budget was modest for its visual scale, thanks to a brilliant organic technical approach: he avoided green screens, shot on location with a skeleton crew using a pro-am ($3000) camera and minimal lighting. Then he fully edited the movie before unleashing the 3D artists. This approach gave the film grittiness and authenticity, while looking as though it cost four times as much.
That said, suspension of disbelief should require no effort when it comes to movies, especially of the fantasy and sci-fi genres. In The Creator, the first few shots of the opening scene already present a narrative incongruence - why the surreptitious approach when the navy seals are accompanied by a 20 mile-wide doomsday skycraft with a huge beacon of light? I’d thoroughly tired of giving the script a pass halfway through Act I.
In light of Hollywood's recent writer's strike about the threat A.I. poses to their livelihoods, rogerebert.com noted the irony of the timing of The Creator's release, given that the movie's theme is the lesson in ethics A.I. gives humanity. I find the irony of this timing more ominous: considering how The Creator's plot twists, character arcs and dialogue are either so often far-fetched or predictable, Edwards might have inadvertently fuelled the studios’ argument in favor of using A.I. for creative writing.
