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Opinions on The Creator are a little divided. This could be that having last made Rogue One, director Gareth Edwards has gathered the attention of Star Wars fans and they can’t agree on anything but I think its easier to measure than that. For me, whether you rate this movie or not comes down to just a couple of things; you have to be content that rather than it being heavily derivative of other movies it is actually deeply versed in the visual language of film history, and you need to be able to let it get you right in the heart. If you don’t respond in this way to the imagery and the story then sure, it’s a so so sci-fi thriller, but if you do then both of these elements could have you in tears.

From my point of view this is a glorious return to the artistic sensibility Edwards showed in his first film Monsters, before he got sucked into the Hollywood machine with Godzilla (bad) and Rogue One (compromised), and is just the type of movie that I love. It’s got special effects, it’s got allegory, it’s got kids, it’s got androids and it’s got a beautiful story. It did take me a while to get into it but by the end I was totally immersed and utterly invested. Okay, the cinematic intertextuality didn’t actually have me welling up but the little robot girl with the sweet human face definitely did.

Topically the story is all about Artificial Intelligence. This might be more relevant than ever now that this is no longer the stuff of science fiction but every decade since the 60s has had its great A.I movie with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, The Matrix, A.I (natch) and Ex Machina, and here is the one for the 2020s. The film tells an alternate history where the Turin test was passed decades ago, rather than just this year, which culminates in A.I developing to the point where it drops a nuke on LA in 2050. This event then starts a war between America, that subsequently outlawed the robots, and Asia, that harboured them.

It is no great spoiler to say that we the audience are supposed to side with the latter and as such this is quite an anti US movie, at least it is heavily critical of American militarism. It goes further than Avatar (one of the many films you can compare this to) in this respect as in Cameron’s movies the hero aliens are only indicative of other real world populations. The opposers here are actually a real real world population, albeit living alongside their own walking metaphors.

In fact this is only one of several ways this shows Avatar to be the lesser film (we’ll stick with Avatar as the comparator but there are others). My position on CGI is that it should be reserved for creating things that do not exist in reality. Why animate water and Earthly landscapes when Earth already has water and beautiful landscapes? That is just VFX for the sake of VFX. Hey cinema, I love your talking apes and monsters but you can keep your mountains and jungles to yourself, I have those already thanks. What The Creator does so delightfully though is paint the computer effects over our world and the resulting imagery is both spectacular and familiar, and so much better than anything seen on Pandora.

Crucially this was all also done for so much less money. This is more than twice the film of most blockbusters yet it was done for less than half the price. Other film makers should be embarrassed for their indulgence.

More than all of this though, the area in which this really wins out is in the plotting and performances. Edwards is taking people to school here too. You may feel like you know where the narrative is going at some points but the film owns that. The point at which you find out the truth about the fateful nuclear detonation in California is underplayed because they know it’s not a big reveal. Rather the movie focuses on the story and its human elements, even though the characters aren’t all actually human. Something else it does better than a certain other film I could mention (I have mentioned it, repeatedly).

The cast are all strong and their are some really reliable actors her, including John David Washington, Ken Watanabe, Gemma Chan and one Allison Janney, playing really well against type. The star is undoubtedly seven-year old Madeleine Yuna Voyles though who shines here as much as Jacob Tremblay in Room or Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project. This isn’t an intimate human drama though and credit to all involved that the emotion isn’t lost among the explosions, car chases and gunfire.

I cannot recommend The Creator highly enough. I just hope you respond to it like I did because if you can the rewards are huge. This is exactly how this sort of film should be done.

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The Ripley Factor:

Ripley herself came from a world of grubby sci-fi, corporate greed, tense battles and technologically advanced aircraft so we really are in her environment here. Gemma Chan is not a great presence in the film but her impact is key and her importance and influence felt throughout. Voyles on the other hand is front and centre and while arguably only coded female is a great role model for any little girl in the middle of a futuristic war. Janney is also strong in a position often held by men (Stephen Lang, watch and learn). I had to think about (okay, I chose to think about) where this sits in my favour alongside Oppenheimer (yes, I liked it that much) but in the end I think the gender politics push this one higher.