It has been a while since a standalone sci-fi movie, that isn’t based on an existing property or the new entry in a franchise, has landed in cinemas and The Creator has a lot of people excited thanks to the talent involved. Gareth Edwards is both writing and directing this one, a beloved name for his many works especially Rogue One a Star Wars side story that had a troubled development but still turned out fantastic, with a legacy only bolstered by the recent Andor series.

Joining Edwards in the starring role is John David Washington who was already a respected name but earned his sci-fi chops after Tenet. For even more star power the immeasurable Ken Watanabe is also on board and, as the trailers on this page reveal, he’s looking less than human.

Yes the world of The Creator – set in 2065 – is filled by humans, advanced AI and robots that bring that AI into the material world. These non-humans can look fully robotic or, in the case of characters like Watanabe’s, there’s a human face on top of a robot body.

Also in the trailer, you can see the very solid CGI that brings this all to life, especially for those non-humans with a unique head that you can see right through. An impressive bit of both costume design and effects.

“Amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua (Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child,” reads the official synopsis.

So that all sounds very promising but unfortunately The Creator simply has nothing new to offer, especially for sci-fi fans who will likely be the first to buy tickets to this movie.

One last complaint is that we don’t even have the time or the word count to spare to discuss the inconsistencies and nonsensical nature of much of the plot. This isn’t just a case of needing to give up some internal logic to serve sci-fi, just pure problems in the how and why the plot works.

Said sci-fi fans will know exactly what we say when, after reading that synopsis, it all sounds very familiar. The rise of AI and robots, this rise as an allegory for racism in the real world, the young girl with mysterious powers… all of this is such old hat that it goes beyond trope.

Sitting down to watch this movie we were desperately hoping that Edwards and company had some surprises in store for us, but none were to be had. As the runtime ticked down cliché followed trope followed predictable plot point again and again. Even those who have consumed less sci-fi but have some grasp of storytelling will be frustrated by this story.

Those who may defend this movie and point out that predictability isn’t so bad, are kind of right. Think of Dune (2021), a movie most people know the plot of either from reading the book or by pure cultural osmosis. That movie doesn’t really have any especially new ideas or big plot twists or even real surprises. The difference is that the filmmaking was so compelling, and the script was so tight that you don’t need new material to create a new experience.

The Creator manages to take old material, present it as the same tired old content it is, and do almost nothing to iterate or make it exciting to watch.

Making this predictability so much worse is plain bad writing. Wow, this one floored us with some real stinkers in both individual lines and scenes. Even more painful is this movie’s several attempts at humour that fall so flat you can practically hear them hit the floor.

The Creator, a modern movie released in 2023, has two scenes featuring animal humour. Like “funny” dog and monkey shenanigans that you’d see in a 70s or 80s movie. We were second-hand embarrassed by these scenes and simply cannot fathom why they are in the movie.

You cannot have the central premise of your movie be so serious and timely as humanity in the face of AI, and then you whip out a funny monkey grinning its teeth at the camera, or several instances of slapstick humour.

There’s a particularly gruesome scene in The Animatrix, The Second Renaissance Part, from 2003, which shows sentiment robots being crushed and disposed of by heavy machinery. The Creator has an eerily similar scene near the beginning, then about 30 minutes later we get several gruesomely bisected robots running around as part of a joke. Not some black humour or anything, just a straight up joke played for laughs. That part also happens to be right after an animal humour bit.

This literal monkey business is just a sign of the overall atrocious writing on display. In similar reviews we’ve often stated that movies, games and other media simply needed one or two edits to properly work. The Creator needs a ground up rewrite.

The only reason this movie doesn’t fall far lower in its score is that the visuals and overall presentation are superb. This is even more impressive given that The Creator is apparently a much smaller production than some other 2023 titles.

According to Screen Rant on both fronts, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts costs $200 million to make. The Creator, on the other hand, costs just $80 million. With the amount of non-humans in The Creator we can say this is a fair comparison and that The Creator looks infinitely better than Rise of the Beasts. As we pointed out in our review, the latest Transformers movie was simply horrific to look at. On the other hand The Creator was a joy in every scene and at all times.

This is heavy use of CGI done well and not once did we find any single environment, object or character to look unconvincing. This is even more impressive given the CGI done to the cast’s faces. CGI in these areas is very easy to mess up as the human brain is so adept at identifying other humans, and it’s just about flawless.

Other effects look great too and the soundtrack was serviceable with at least one track in there that we’ll be hunting down to listen to on its own.

The cast is also worth praise as it must have taken some real acting chops to choke through some of that bad dialogue.

The Creator had a solid enough, if generic, foundation to build something great, but failed fundamentally in the writing stage. The execution and visual work manage to save a lot of points here, but that simply isn’t enough for us to recommend this one.

FINAL SCORE: 5 OUT OF 10.