The Creator (2023) – Review

Poster courtesy of Getty Images

Quick thoughts – Grade – B+ – The Creator is bursting with life and features some of the best visuals of 2023. Between Monsters, Godzilla, Rogue One and The Creator, Gareth Edwards is a master of scale and I love his commitment to creating larger than life visuals that linger in your memory. 

My favorite thing about Gareth Edwards is that he understands scale and knows how to make big things look really big on screen. There are moments in Godzilla (Godzilla swimming with the aircraft carriers), Rogue One (the Star Destroyer over Jedha City) and Monsters (the creatures appear next to the gas station) that put a big smile on my face, and the same thing happens in The Creator. Writing about the plot is tough because it’s a movie littered with moments that shouldn’t be mentioned here. However, I do love that Edwards shot on location in Thailand, and according to him they filmed  on “the eighth highest mountain in the world in the Himalayas.” It’s because of the on location work that everything looks real and lived in. He may have only made this film to keep himself safe during a hypothetical AI attack (a joke he makes), but you can see all of his influences and he has no problem calling them out. What Edwards wants to do with The Creator is bring back the sweeping sci-fi epic that he used to watch as a kid. 

Since it’s a film by Edwards, the movie focuses on a dangerous road trip that involves lots of explosions, gun fights, and AI creations that explode during gunfights. At the center of everything is Joshua (John David Washington) a former soldier who is recruited by the mysterious Colonel Howell (Allison Janney) to destroy a secret weapon created by an elusive architect named the Creator. The assignment goes awry, and it leads to Joshua and a young AI nicknamed Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles – very good) being chased by seemingly everyone on the planet. The neat thing about The Creator is that the AI is somewhere between Terminator and Her, it can be violent, but it is also capable of love. To write more would spoil the experience, just know that solid actors like Gemma Chan, Sturgill Simpson, Amar Chadha-Patel, and Ken Watanabe make the best of their screen time. 

On top of the cool location work and gorgeous VFX, the cinematography by Greig Fraser (The Batman, Dune) and Oren Soffer is excellent. Soffer’s handheld work is inspired and it creates a 360-degree atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re in the action. Shot on a Sony FX3, the 2.76:1 ultra-wide aspect ratio gives the movie an epic feel and the high ISO allowed it to capture a lot of light while on location – which must’ve helped Soffer shoot later into the day. It’s a neat idea and it probably helped keep the budget down to a relatively low $80 million. Knowing that this movie only cost $80 million makes me like it more because it looks epic and feels epic. All of the money is seen on screen, and I really hope that people will turn out to watch the ambitious movie. 

Final Thoughts – Watch it. Enjoy it. It’s an original film that feels familiar but is well worth your time.