The Creator (2023)
Humanity evolves.
Working my way through my backlog list, one step at a time - this time with the intelligence to do it while it’s on a streaming service I already pay for so I don’t have to buy it separate to do a review! I’ve already seen a good bit of different scenes of this one, mostly on account of blowing up all that effects work - so despite some mild worries about the movie being preachy, I’m sold to have a good time at least in one department. Could be another situation of preaching to the choir this time - but the only way to find out is to watch. Plug in and make sure you aren’t set to standby, tonight we watch The Creator.
The plot here is a big layered onion of advancement levels that likes to just keep giving more things to figure out. We start of with some background - people made robots, people made robots better and gave them AI, then apparently AI decided to nuke LA and the people took offense to that. Thus began America’s war against the AI, driving most of them overseas to more Asian areas who live perfectly fine with the AI. America thinks the AI are creating a super weapon though, so they gotta get over there for some fancy strikes with their giant high-orbit missile machine gun (my words, not theirs). Enter the main character, whose an undercover agent and through unfortunate timing and events ends up watching his wife slash unknowing informant get exploded by said missile. Pick up later when the military engine that is the US of anti-A I drafts him back into action with temptations that maybe his wife isn’t actually dead.
There’s way more to it than that, but you can figure that out as you go. Suffice it to say, the characters have a lot going on here, and you aren’t privy to most of it until the end of the movie. It’s not hard to follow, it just likes to fill out extra hitches in peoples existence as it goes. The characters aren’t all super elaborate either - the main crew of perhaps three to four characters is really where it’s at. The military types are all doing there thing, as misinformed and overzealous as it is, and in turn they make great bad guys in comparison to the rebel-types, who usually are not the ones to fire first and constantly defending children and innocents. To contrast, you don’t see any robots put a gun to a dog’s head as a threat - that’s a uniquely human trait. The main gets to have a lot of bits of trauma and reason to his actions, even if at it’s core his character is almost entirely just wanting his wife back. It’s a good enough balance that you feel like you aren’t getting too bogged down with character history of all the folks on screen, but that they also aren’t all just screen fodder for the larger story at hand.
Acting is done quite well. Thanks to some VFX magic I watched over on one of my favored Youtube channels, I think part of why it works so well is that most of it - even the robots - are actually just people doing people things. They could theoretically have put together a copy of this movie without a single robot in it if they really wanted to - but then it would be lacking a certain something. Since we have so many people acting against people, it’s easier for things like eye-lines and little interactions with body language line up as well. Yes, sometimes the robot doesn’t quite feel 100% in the scene because our brains just tell us it’s not real, but even then they bring a surprising amount of character to something that’s essentially a bomb garbage can with arms and legs, so you know they are at least doing something right with the deliveries and the likes. It’s well acted, I don’t think folks will have a hard time enjoying that part.
Taking “nothing between the ears” a little seriously.
All those praises aside, I’m not really done yet. The effects works is amazingly done here. Is it totally and utterly convincing at all times? Close enough in my book. You never really question it - I mean, some might question just how much damage a robot can take and still robot given the different amount of impacts it tends to take on different characters in different scenes (like some police bots functioning to some degree with no heads, whereas farmer-bot goes down from one shot to the chest). Some might question Why some of the fancy futuristic cars function the way they do or nobody seems to ever be wicked early alerted by the giant missile-base’s laser targeting because it seems perhaps a little unrealistic. Me though? I don’t care at all - I’m just having a blast with the visuals. Finding out that a lot of it was just manually layered over actors doing the scenes normal all after the fact? That’s just some gnarly icing on top of the gorgeous cake.
A lot of fun in the costume work as well, and as I like to mention it’s one of my favorite part of sci fi movies is the fun you get to have with costumes. Yes, a good amount is mostly modern-esque stuff with a few little science fiction flairs, but it all looks good. The robotic parts look robotic enough, without being too overly complicated like it sometimes felt with things like the Bay Transformer movies. Laser guns, big explosions, and some artistic scenery shots are all in there as well, showing that someone had a pretty good eye for framing their shots and imaginations. Heck, we even get a miniature car shot that you probably would never guess was a miniature car shot unless someone told you. I’d say in that regard - things for the eyes to see - it pretty well knocks it out of the park.
Audio is likewise well balanced and smoothly done. It can’t all be shining greatness though right? Well, I wouldn’t really call anything here bad - although that being said we do have some hiccups in things like the movie’s flow. It’s not horrible, I’ve seen it worse for sure, but there are times where it feels to slow down a good bit. Not enough that the movie feels like it’s dragging, but from a guy who always likes to point out how movies could be made shorter, I feel remiss to not warn a person that there may be some slower spots that in all honesty they probably should have figured there would be from the trailer. The only reason this probably took me as long to get to watching it as it did is because I was worried it was going to go super heavy in to the drama and preachy angle that you sometimes get with AI focused movies. You know, the “what it means to be human” angle. This does have some of that (both the slower drama bits and the bit of preaching), but it’s not overboard with it. There’s also a great moment where it nail’s my general opinion public intelligence when the main’s coworker mentions she hear the robots nuke LA so they could take our jobs, and my favorite response to it - they can have this one! Needless to say, there’s stuff for the thinking folks here.
Just a classic hazmat body detail.
Unless you are the kind of person who is physically pained by any media in which the good old US military complex isn’t the good guys, you’ll probably enjoy at least one aspect of this movie. It’s acted well, it’s got a few characters to build up and form bonds with, and it’s got plenty of knock-out effects work in it. Even if it’s not the best movie ever made, it’s still a darn good and pretty enjoyable one, and it doesn’t feel super long when your watching it even if you hit one of those lulls for character and world building. At the time of writing this it’s available on the Hulu service and the subtitles there are more than suitable for those who like them on. Otherwise, I feel like it’s probably worth a rent for a good number of folks since it’s pretty finely put together and offers plenty for the eye to see on a bigger screen if you have one.