Heres Looking at You Robot Kid

The Creator delivers big budget looks and scale infused with philosophical ideas, making it the kind of blockbuster film making people who decry the modern glut of franchise fodder will constantly tell you is missing from the big screen. Naturally it ended up playing to mostly empty theatres.

The central plot revolves around AI. Not the take your job, destroy creative industries and push propaganda kind that is depressing everyone in the news right now but good old sci fi robotic humanoids. Banned in the West after a nuclear incident they have taken refuge in "NewAsia" prompting the US to wage war across the Pacific, causing terror with a massive orbital battle station called the NOMAD. When word emerges the AI may have a new super weapon of their own John David Washington's bitter ex Army Sergeant Joshua Taylor is recruited to help a crack team go and eliminate the problem. When he discovers the "weapon" is a synthetic child he takes it on the run in the hope it can lead him to his previously thought deceased wife.

While the themes and religious undertones aren't exactly anything new it's refreshing to see them put so boldly to the fore and the script firmly get behind an ideal. There's none of that "can a machine have a soul?" stuff by the time credits roll here, sentience is life and taking it away is bad. Those who have seen director Gareth Edwards previous work, such as his debut gem Monsters and the parts of Rouge One that Disney actually let him direct, will know he has no qualms sticking it to the American notion of "keeping the peace" and the people running The Land Of the Free™ are very much the complete villains of the piece in The Creator. It may look stunning but that isn't the only reason Vietnam and its neighbours provide the backdrop here.

Speaking of looking stunning it really can't be overstated how great the visuals of this world are. Beautiful rural backdrops mixed with some of the crispest CGI you'll see this side of Pandora create truly unique vision of the future. The fact this all cost $80 million should have studios pumping out $200 mil plus comic book movies with scenes that look like JPEGs hanging their heads in shame. It puts to bed the argument that last years The Way of Water only looked so good because of Cameron's bottomless budget. Turns out that if you have a director with a singular vision involved in the effects process from the beginning then you can create something wonderful. Maybe handing overworked VFX artists the whole film to fix in post on an insane deadline isn't the way to make films look good? Who'd have thought.

So the Creator has looks and personality in spades as well as another great leading man turn from John David Washington. The story does sag a little as it goes on and the conclusion is visible a mile off but its always entertaining and a film of this type on this scale is something to be treasured.

8 rules of robotics followed out of 10.

Comments

Icky Ice Cream

Note before the review: It has emerged that generative AI featured in the making of Ice Cream Man and the filmmakers appear to have been less than 100% honest with how much it was used. I have reviewed the film as I saw it and have not taken the way it was made into account. If you (understandably) want nothing to do with a movie that used generative AI then give this one a miss. "The kids have gone fucking insane" screams a father just before his son and daughter, having already mangled his hand in the garbage disposal, set fire to him. How you feel about the idea of that scene pretty much tells you what you will think about the whole of Ice Cream Man, the latest bloodstained offering from gore hound Eli Roth. The premise is a basic one: a quite overtly sinister ice cream man comes to town and, the day after he hands out his freezer based treats, any child who consumed them turns into little murder bots and begin dismembering the local adults. A couple of kids who didn...

Let's Do The Timewarp

The plot of The End of Oak Street sees an early 80s suburban family, and their entire neighbourhood suddenly transported back to prehistoric times. There's some talk of solar flares and time bubbles by way of an explanation but it's all nonsense in service of one central idea: dinosaurs in suburbia. Turns out this idea is so good it not only sustains the film but leaves you wondering why nobody has done it before. The central family consists of Anne Hathaway's frustrated novelist Denise Platt and her pizza delivering husband Greg (Ewan McGregor), along with their children Audrey (Daisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). While Dad and the kids are exactly the type of characters you would have expected to see in an 80s family adventure but Denise is a more modern female lead. She wants to achieve more than simply being a mother and is unhappy with her simple suburban life. Add in the fact she plays the realist when things kick off and her constant negative vibe can mean ...

Summer of 75

Tony opens with a quote from the late chef, and subject of this semi-biopic, Anthony Bourdain's memoir. It goes: "I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking." He's not wrong. The Tony (he's much too cool to let people call him Anthony) we meet at the beginning of the film is an insufferable blowhard. He tells anyone who'll listen about his great future as a writer, despite seemingly having an aversion to doing any actual writing. He assumes the panel awarding a prestigious scholarship is too stupid to see his pitch is nonsense bravado. He condescendingly explains the meaning of what he thinks are obscure words, despite not always knowing himself. While he does change over the course of the film, it's hard to map an actual character journey. That's because more than a biopic or chef's origin story, Tony is a summer vibes hangout movie. The story take...

That Wasn't All Folks

Coyote vs. Acme was originally scheduled for release way back in 2023 (in the theatrical slot that eventually went to Barbie, no less) but a change of leadership at Warner Bros led to them deciding to scrap the film, figuring a tax break was preferable to releasing a complete movie that hundreds of people had worked on. A combination of public outcry and tenacity from independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment has led to the film finally getting its day in cinemas. Congratulations are in order as the live-action/animated combination comedy is one of the most entertaining family movies of the year. After faulty ACME products foil yet another of his attempts to capture Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote sees an advert on TV by Will Forte's lazy lawyer Kevin in which he promises a payout for faulty ACME goods. In reality Kevin is a bottom feeder who has made a career out of settling lawsuits against the corporate giants for peanuts, but Wile E. forces him to engage in the trial of the cen...

The Menu Serves up a Macabre Treat

The menu is a squid ink black culinary satire that skewers the sycophants and disrespectful tourists that steal the joy from being a high end chef (or any form of artist) while also being a three Michelin star dark comedy and acting as a power fantasy of sorts for those in the service industry. The film centres around Anya Taylor-Joy's Margot as she accompanies potential boyfriend Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to an island to eat at the most exclusive of restraunts. The restraunt, and indeed whole island, are presided over by Chef Slowik who is idolised by his diners and inspires complete devotion from his cult-like staff. The customers comprise the worst, but all too familiar, "enjoyers" of fine dining. There's a hilariously self-indulgent critic, some wall street bro's there for the bragging rights, a washed up, name dropping celebrity and an ultra rich couple with no appreciation for the privilege they enjoy. Perhaps most ridiculous of all is Tyler himself, a gate ke...

Thunderbolts and Lightning, Mental Health is Frightening*

Thunderbolts* takes a bunch of relatively minor MCU characters and scoops them up into a "Suicide Squad" type adventure where they face off against insurmountable odds. Given most of the characters have appeared in TV shows, there is a distinct whiff of Disney+ about proceedings but it is also one of the most solid films Marvel has put out in years. The execs must have known they had something decent on their hands as they waited until a whole weekend after release to spoil the end twist with marketing, as appose to doing it in the trailers. The titular Thunderbolts are : New Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), failed Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell), former Winter Soldier turned congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Russian super soldier and Yelena's adoptive father Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ant Man 2 alumni Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and maybe mysterious newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman). If you follow MCU events you will recognise ...

Smile for the Cameras

The October horror train continues with Smile 2 , follow up to 2022 breakout hit Smile. Director and writer Parker J. Finn returns with a much more textured character story that is let down by retreading the same beats and half frights as its predecessor. After a brief segment involving Joel from the first movie we focus on pop star Sky Riley (Naomi Scott) as she attempts to mount a comeback a year on from a drug induced car crash that claimed the life of her boyfriend and left her needing extensive surgery. Unable to get strong painkillers due to her addiction problems she visits an old drug dealer friend to procure some Vicodin but when he smashes his own face in with a plate weight she inherits "The Smile" curse. She begins to experience bizarre goings on and people creepily grinning at her as she enters a race against time to discover what's going on and find a way to rid herself of the demon. By far the strongest element of Smile 2 is the character of Sky and the...

Eight is the Loneliest Number of Legs

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into cinemas to deliver a much needed box office shot in the arm to the once invincible MCU and prove that the wall crawler is Marvel's most enduring hero. It delivers on the Spiderman feeling but loses steam as the 2 hour 20 minute runtime rolls on. Since everyone he cares about is either dead or has forgotten him after the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has been focusing solely on his Spider-Man duties. As a result, he has more or less eradicated organised crime in New York and is idolised by the city populace. On the downside, he is devoid of real human contact apart from phone calls to a detective and a grudging pseudo-friendship with gun toting vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka The Punisher. He still pines after his lost relationships with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) and it seems his isolation is beginning to have a physical effect on him. This couldn't come at a worse time, with a new threat that can s...

Talking 'Bout My Girl

In addition to already being the name of a dozen or so movies, Obsession is a horrendously dull film title. It conjures up images of dated romantic thrillers or bargain basement serial killer flicks. This is a long-winded way of saying this darkly humorous relationship nightmare deserves a better name, as it's anything but stale. Barron "Bear" Bailey (Michael Johnston), Nikki (Inde Navarrette), Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) are longtime friends and work colleagues. Bear has long harboured feelings for Nikki and is determined to confess his love, despite warnings from Ian to bide his time and the fact Sarah might be the one who is actually interested in a romantic relationship. After chickening out of an ideal opportunity to tell Nikki how he feels he uses a cheap novelty collectible called a "One Wish Willow" to wish his crush was hopelessly in love with him. Turns out the tacky toy is legit and ties him into a "The Substance" styl...

Wasted Men

From Scum to Starred Up, neither the big nor small screen are short of brutally frank depictions of life behind British bars. Wasteman adds a taut, modern take to the pile and shows that life isn't getting any easier inside. Philip Barantini (creator of Boiling Point and Adolescence) is on board as a producer so you know it's going to feel real and the Safdie brothers were at one point attached to direct, so you know it's going to be gut-clenchingly tense. It doesn't disappoint on either front. David Jonsson plays long term convict Taylor. A timid drug addict, he cuts the hair of the top-dog inmates in return for a regular fix and is existing rather than living as the years of his sentence tick by when he gets some unexpected news. Prison overcrowding means he is up for early release, provided he can keep his nose clean for a couple of weeks, something made increasingly tricky by the arrival of his new cellmate Dee (Tom Blyth). Dee encourages Taylor to make contact wit...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog