In 2055, the USA has rejected AI after it nuked Los Angeles. But the state of New Asia has embraced it, turning even its mountain dwelling peasants and monks into androids. 

The Creator‘s promising trailer masks a rusty re-run of various post-apocalyptic flops with ideas falling short of its aspirations. Washed out visuals and pretentious chapter headings suggest a weighty Film which at 2hrs 15 is just waity. The absence of even an attempt at character development leaves talented performers struggling, and a flat tone creates a sense that the writing would have been better entrusted to AI. There’s even an annoying kid who is the key to ending the war, in case you were worried there weren’t enough bad sci-fi clichés.

While boasting some decent CGI, it’s overstuffed with effects, especially the android heads which have barely moved on since A.I.: Artificial Intelligence 22 years ago. The robotic upgrades don’t seem to offer any cognitive or physical advantage, other than to remind us the film is meant to be about to be about robots.

In 2023 it’s reasonable to expect a film about AI to have something interesting to say on the topic. But writer/director Gareth Edwards seems to have creationist levels of interest in science. Just six years away from the year the Terminator was sent back from, the understanding of Hollywood screenwriters doesn’t seem to have developed at all. AI is no more than a trendy buzzword, like Marvel’s use of multiverses: a scientific concept with public notoriety exceeding its comprehension, to be used to excuse flimsy writing.

Problem solving doesn’t appear to have moved on in this AI enhanced world, with nearly every scene ending with a gun battle or CGI explosion. All it means is bigger weapons, a giant barcode reader in the sky and a bomb shaped like a dustbin which runs towards its enemy on foot before detonating itself, faster than you can say “unexpected item in bagging area”. The only question The Creator raises is why, if you can recreate the front of someone’s head, you can’t recreate the back of it.

What results is not just a dumb, shallow action film, it’s a boring one. It’s Terminator Salvation without the good bits: weird CGI Arnie and Christian Bale’s unhinged rant.