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

Killing in the Name of

Mortal Kombat II is, unsurprisingly, a sequel to 2021's Mortal Kombat and the latest attempt to adapt the long running fighting game franchise for the big screen. There has been a bit of a shift in Hollywood over the five years since the last instalment and this film has a very different attitude. Gone is the attempt to "serious-up" the material as MKII fully embraces its dumb video game roots. It still isn't exactly good, but at least this time round it's bad in an enjoyable way. For those unfamiliar with the games, they are based around a fighting tournament that decides if an evil empire from another dimension, or "realm", gets to take over Earth. Think "Enter the Dragon" with superpowers and a hefty dose of inspiration from "Big Trouble in Little China". In terms of this movie, eight people from Earth take turns fighting eight people from "Outworld". Sounds simple enough but the script makes no attempt to create any s...

Tune In, Cop Out

Tuner lead character Nikki (Leo Woodall) hasn't had much luck. His parents aren't around and H yperacusis (an extreme sensitivity to noise) put an end to his piano playing days. Now he puts his enhanced sense to use as a piano tuner, working for mentor and father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman). When Harry falls ill and into debt, Nikki takes on a sideline in safe cracking for shady security boss Uri (Lori Raz). All is well at first, but as time goes on it becomes increasingly hard for Nikki to juggle his day job, lucrative but dangerous side hustle and a blossoming romance with musical student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu). The set up may make you think you are in for a slick crime caper, but that's not really what this film is. Director Daniel Roher made his name in documentaries and Tuner has a very naturalistic feel. The city is vibrant and busy while close up shots show the intricacy of the pianos and locks Nikki has mastery over. We are following characters (mainly Nikki)...

Van Afterlife

Passenger director Andrè Øverdal has some impressive credits under his belt, including his Norwegian language breakout hit Trollhunter and chilling haunted corpse movie The Autopsy of Jane Doe. That explains why this mediocre horror has a couple of well crafted set-piece scares, but he is saddled with a bland script that is content to tick familiar genre boxes. Things start promisingly with the titular "Passenger" (a highway stalking demonic entity) dispatching a pair of nighttime travellers. We are then introduced to young couple Maddie (Lou Llobell) and Tyler (Jacob Scipio) who are about to abandon the city for a life on the road in their swanky van. Tyler is all in (to an obnoxious degree) but Maddie is hiding some reservations and things get spooky when they are marked by the walking metaphor for the dangers of travel. The first issue the movie runs into is the confusing nature of the entity itself. Why does it mess around with our leads for days when it kills everyone ...

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...

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...

Listening to the Sounds in Silence

The tagline for breakout indie horror hit Undertone is, "The Scariest Movie You'll Ever Hear". This declaration sets out the film's stall as a uniquely audio based horror, and that is exactly what it delivers. The result is something that will chill some people to the bone and leave others falling asleep in their seats. Originally made for a meagre $500,000, the film takes place entirely in one location (director Ian Tuason's childhood home) and centres on podcaster Ivy, played with impressive range by Nina Kiri. Ivy is caring for her dying mother (the only other person who appears onscreen) so has to wait until the early hours of the morning to record her paranormal podcast with friend Justin (the voice of Adam DiMarco). She plays the role of sceptic to Justin's believer but her rationality is tested when her cohost begins playing some eerie audio files he received from an anonymous listener. Although Undertone isn't a found footage film, it very much t...

Hell to Pay

They Will Kill You begins with a soaking wet Zazie Beetz waiting to start her maid job at swanky apartment building, The Virgil. Her character Asia is a former convict who has no idea her new employers are devil worshipers who sacrifice their staff to Lucifer. The building residents have no idea that Asia is actually there for reasons other than a steady paycheque and is not about to go gently into that good night. The touch paper is soon lit on a relentless blend of slapstick horror action that leaves little room for you to catch your breath across its ninety minute odd runtime. The most obvious comparison here is to 2019's Ready or Not and its sequel (which coincidentally released one week before this film), where an unsuspecting bride is left fighting for her life when her wealthy in-laws opt to make her a human sacrifice. While They Will Kill You shares that movie's comedic spirit we are much deeper into supernatural territory here. The grand old building and seemingly ...

Ghostbusted

Ghostbusters : Frozen Empire continues the trend of diminishing returns from Ghostbusters as a franchise. Worse, it's the first time a 'Busters film has fallen into outright bad territory. After the classic 1984 original 1989's sequel was considered a disappointment (although it raked it in at the box office) but still had the charisma of its predecessors iconic cast. The female led reboot in 2016 was fun action comedy but didn't stand up the legendary original. In 2021 they started again with Afterlife, pitching Ghostbusters as Stranger Things in order to move things to a small town and test the water without having to bust the bank. Frozen Empire is a direct sequel to that film (and by extension the first two) but feels like little more than a corporate exercise in mud flinging to see what sticks. We start off with a ghost chase through New York, where Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Gary Grooberson (Pa...

Whisky in the Jar

Glenrothan has been sold as "a love letter to Scotland" and given that it features two of Scotland's most accomplished actors, whisky, folk music and stunning landscape shots, it's hard to argue. Is it anything more than that? Not really, but maybe that's OK. Alan Cumming and Brian Cox (who also directs) are Donal and Sandy Nairn, estranged brothers and heirs to a beloved whisky distillery. Growing up, big brother Sandy was desperate to leave their idyllic village and its distillery behind, while Donal wanted to be nowhere else. Family issues resulted in them both leading the life that the other used to dream of, as Donal left for America and Sandy took over the family business when their father's health began to fail. When his blues bar burns down, Donal makes his first trip back to Scotland in forty years, accompanying his daughter and granddaughter to visit his ailing brother. A quick look at the trailer tells you everything you need to know about Glenroth...

You Screen, I Scream

The worst thing about Scream 7 isn't actually the film itself. It's the at best cowardly, actions of production company Spyglass Media who fired the star of the previous two films, Melissa Barrera, for daring to have an opinion on genocide. In addition to leaving an icky taste in the mouth, this move cost them fellow star Jenna Ortega and the guy who was supposed to direct the seventh instalment Christopher Landon, resulting in a return to the drawing board to completely rework the film. The only actually good thing about Scream 7 is also nothing to do with the actual film. Series mainstay Neve Campbell missed the previous instalment after producers lowballed her, but the production chaos of their own making means they've had to go crawling back. So Neve returns with a reported $7 million payday, a producer credit and a story based solely around how legendary her character Sydney is. Go her. The actual film doesn't warrant much discussion at all, given it does little mo...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog