'The Creator' review: Gareth Edwards' innovative sci-fi spectacular is something special

A movie that makes you think about existence and the world around you, explodes your brain with cool visuals and sufficiently blows stuff up? “The Creator” being a sci-fi fan's dream is just science.

Most known for a “Godzilla” movie and the “Star Wars” prequel “Rogue One,” British writer/director Gareth Edwards' best effort was the dynamite 2010 debut “Monsters," a politically themed creature feature/relationship drama. The filmmaker again takes a thought-provoking look at humanity, this time through a futuristic lens with “The Creator” (★★★½ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters now). The moving and eye-popping thriller, starring a never-better John David Washington, dives into the hot-button topic of artificial intelligence but more importantly mankind's tendency toward war and how we treat those different than us.

The film begins with a history lesson about AI in this fictional world, which evolves from being created to help mankind to being blamed for a nuke going off in Los Angeles. In the aftermath, America wants to wipe out all AI and humanoid robots (called “simulants”) while in places like New Asia, man and machine still live side by side in harmony. Conflict breaks out between factions, and the government uses a winged ship of mass destruction called the USS Nomad to seek out and destroy AI bases and allies.

Joshua (Washington) is an undercover special forces agent embedded in an AI-friendly group who watches his pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan) seemingly die in an explosion as he was being extracted. Ten years later, he’s on clean-up duty at ground zero of the LA disaster site when he’s recruited by a couple of no-nonsense military types (Allison Janney and Ralph Ineson) for a new mission. A mysterious human scientist nicknamed “Nimrata” is working on an AI superweapon in New Asia that could take out the Nomad and win the war, so eliminating that is the most significant task, yet more intriguing to Joshua is evidence that Maya might actually still be alive.

After his team is dropped in enemy territory, Joshua finds that the target for destruction is actually a little AI girl named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Unable to kill her, he goes rogue with her in tow, and as they end up bonding on an epic journey to meet the enigmatic Nimrata, Joshua discovers Alphie’s power to control and affect mechanical devices and he sees how the other machines view her as a messianic figure.

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“The Creator” wears its influences on its sleeve, everything from “Star Wars” to “Akira” to “Apocalypse Now.” At the same time, it also feels extraordinarily original – like the first time you saw “Blade Runner” and when not being wowed by how cool it was, you wondered if Harrison Ford was human or android.

Edwards’ spectacle feels similar: He’s exquisitely crafted a mostly Asian-infused landscape that feels sort of alien, a little familiar and completely immersive, featuring soldiers with boxy machine heads and bizarre walking bombs with mechanical arms and legs. All of that stunning novelty exists alongside Washington and Voyles' strong chemistry together as a man and a robotic child growing closer, navigating hostiles and obstacles, and having deep discussions about life, like who goes to heaven and who doesn’t.

Religion is very much another human theme that Edwards explores in “The Creator.” While the movie touches on modern concerns about robots replacing us, it’s more a metaphor here for outsiders and differing belief systems in an ambitious narrative that hurls a lot at its audience in two hours and 13 minutes. A flurry of flashbacks doesn't always help momentum, some twists lean predictable and a few narrative threads are wrapped up a little too neatly, though nothing too heinous distracts from the film's more emotional and rousing moments.

This is a tale that could only be written by flesh and blood, not ChatGPT, and Edwards is all about reaching the hearts and minds of those who love next-level sci-fi.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'The Creator' review: Gareth Edwards' AI movie is a sci-fi fan's dream