Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
I saw this one at the Wheel-In Motor Movie just outside Port Townsend, Washington, which may have been unfair; after all, one would prefer to judge a film based on optimal conditions, which drive-ins, by their nature, do not provide. Still, seeing it this way made the evening some kind of experience, something that it's hard to believe The Creator offers otherwise.
The Wheel-In's screen is backed by tall evergreen trees, a distinctly cozy effect, and in a number of spots the place, built in 1953, still has those posts for the old speakers that hang on the car window (although I couldn't find any that still had the speakers themselves plugged in, despite the ticket-taker's encouraging words when I mentioned I'd like to listen that way—so the car radio did the job). I was disappointed that there were no old-timey drive-in ads for the snack bar; this is part of the appeal of the drive-in, part of the collective memory of a dwindling population. I wanted to see the countdown clock and animated hot dogs jumping into buns; instead, we heard a mixtape of zany songs, mostly of the "Monster Mash" variety, and no visual accompaniment—although we did hear a personal introduction from, I assume, the owner, a homey touch.
Gareth Edwards' film takes a series of borrowed situations and blends them into a smooth, featureless gruel. Honestly, I parked too far from the screen, which made the material difficult to get into. So that's on me. Still, I recognize clichés when they float past. The film has the disenchanted hero (John David Washington, who sounds more like his father than before) and the threat of AI and a sort of lost-love backstory, all of which feel like they come from a screenwriter's manual. Washington's character gets involved with a robot child, with whom he bonds over the realization that "neither of us is going to heaven" (because Washington is a bad man and the kid is AI), one of the rare moments a decent piece of dialogue bursts out of the familiar sci-fi chatter. There's one funny sequence involving old-school robots (who mutter "It's been a pleasure serving you" before clomping off into their suicide missions), and although that was amusing, I couldn't actually tell you what they were there for or what was going on in their scene.
I enjoyed an opening sequence that catches us up on the film's world by means of a 1950s-style newsreel. I also enjoyed watching a guy walk from his car to the snack bar about four times during the movie (it's a long movie), his gait increasingly uncertain each time, but his trips always marked by some pointed, almost desperate vaping—the smoking device flaring up a little blue light as he veered through the lot under the stars, a sci-fi touch. This, despite the fact that the voice on the radio before the film specifically asked us to smoke only inside our cars.
At some point in The Creator someone hops on a shuttle to the moon, which came as a great surprise to me, but perhaps I missed the earlier set-up. By that time I was unbelievably bored by the dead pacing and the gloomy mood, and irritated by everybody calling the AI kid "The Child," as in "Bring me The Child" or "Have you found The Child?" And by the way, this is that kind of movie in which the monster/mutant/AI character has telekinetic powers, yet the screenplay is very selective about when it's convenient to unleash those powers.
I see the film has garnered some appreciative reviews, and I am willing to admit that the circumstances of my viewing might have made some kind of difference—and yet, I come to basically the same conclusions I had about Edwards' Monsters and Godzilla: cool visual palette, but not so much going on in the ol' human-behavior department.
At about 10:30, after the movie had ended and a couple of coming-attractions trailers had played (still no animated hot dogs!) and the vaping guy had enjoyed another smoke with a pal (curiously, standing some distance from their car), the second feature began. It was a Sunday night, yet there were still a few cars left to hang around until after midnight to watch Haunted Mansion. I left, but I salute the fortitude of the remainers.
October 6, 2023
