The Creator

Absolutely atrocious. Internal story/world logic goes out the window within scenes – nevermind across the entire movie – which coupled with a plot filled with holes and cardboard-cutout characters left me increasingly struggling to keep my eyes open. Steals ideas from A.I., District 9, Elysium and many others, but without any overarching principle. But sure – it looks OK.

The rating I did give it is because it looks cool. And because it's surprisingly very anti-US Army. But the script isn't functional on the most basic of levels, it's loaded with story cliches, it has a country called New Asia and all of its twists were extremely predictable. The world has interesting elements, but it's not coherent or cohesive. Some of the soundtrack was nice! Nothing worked for me on a character / emotional level.

With a wide range of influences, there's a lot to like in this, but let's be absolutely honest with each other: this is "Avatar" with AI. Take Avatar, mix it with Star Wars, and sprinkle on some Fallout for seasoning, and you get this movie. That's not a bad thing. But I was really hoping for some more nuanced and complex storytelling. This is a very rudimentary narrative, and while that's widely appealing, it challenges nothing and does not expand the conversation around its fertile subject.

It's tremendous to looking at, the CGI team all deserve a long round of applause. Sadly, I don't think the script and editing are up to the same level. We'd be talking about a classic otherwise. Lots of potential ideas, none really worked through. Certainly a big (BIG!) screen watch, I was left wanting something more.

Feels like I should "reward" this more for being a pretty decent sci-fi flick in a world of shit. But come on, there isn't a single original thought in this. I bet my life savings this was pitched as "every scifi movie meets every nam movie with a side of every miracle child and road movie" and thus pants were jizzed.