A group of soldiers boards a helicopter.
Okay, it’s not really a helicopter. It doesn’t have rotors; it flies via the power of some sort of futuristic repulser technology. But it has open doors on each side. It ascends and descends and hovers. So, it’s a helicopter.
A group of soldiers boards a helicopter, and the bearded, burley, gruff guy puts what looks like a cassette in the helicopter’s tape deck. I register the reference to Apocalypse Now milliseconds before the song starts playing, so for an instant, I expect “Ride of the Valkyries.” But then something different fills the sky on the screen as well as the cavern of the theater where I’m sitting. It’s “Everything in its Right Place,” the opening track from Radiohead’s Kid A, a song that means as much to me, and to many people my age, as any other song. I’ve never heard it this loud before. It’s a song that has always vibrated in my soul. Watching The Creator, it vibrated my bones.
We liven an era of special-effects driven, science-fiction and fantasy films and television series. Almost everything is wizards, be they wizards in Manhattan, wizards in Middle Earth, or wizards among the stars. I love them all. Some of these fantastic tales are the stories that have most inspired me. But they haven’t felt real in twenty years, probably since Gandalf departed from the Grey Havens with Frodo at the end of The Return of the King. That scene is one of the most unreal in Jackson’s whole trilogy, and now it plays for me like a cinematic departure as well. As Gandalf sailed away, we left the physical world behind in our fantasy films in favor of an increasingly detailed but much less grounded CGI eternity. Many movies since have stirred my soul, but absent a visceral recognition of the world I inhabit, something movies like Apocalypse Now and other films made prior to the CGI revolution in the 1980s, they have rarely shaken by bones.
Gareth Edwards much be some kind of wizard because, while he has only made special-effects driven, science-fiction films, he makes movies you can feel like you feel it when a jet airplane breaks the sound barrier over your house. I cannot divine his secret methods. It’s something in the way he uses scale and sound, and it’s something to do with his proclivity for shooting his actors in real places no matter what CGI monstrosity is going to be added to the sky later.
His characters alway feel twinkly drawn, their inner lives outlined with bullet points but never expanded, their relationships are the stuff of elevator pitches, not the therapist’s couch. They are symbols of fatherhood and motherhood, siblings, and rebellious children. Honestly, I don’t care because put me and my loved ones in the footpath of a monster or a Death Star, and I’d become a concentrated version of myself too. Crises tend to simplify things, and Edwards’ characters are always a half-step ahead of the end of the world. And frankly, I’ll sacrifice subtle character beats for the feeling I get when Godzilla roars, when I see that Star Destroyer hovering over Jedha, and when The Creator’s NOMAD rains hell from the stratosphere on Southeast Asian refugee enclaves.
I just realized I haven’t told you anything about what this film is. A former special ops soldier is recruited to go back into territory controlled by artificially intelligent humanoids to locate and destroy a rumored super weapon. The weapon turns out to be an android that looks like a little girl. For… reasons… he decides to help her instead. Your mind is probably already buzzing with other movies this sound like. You’re not wrong. The list of references for The Creator would be longer than this review, and for many, the familiarity of the story will preclude them from enjoying it. They’ll be missing out on Edwards’ panache.
I don’t think we mostly go tot he movies for original stories anyway. If that were true, we’d have stopped going to most of the “big” movies twenty years ago. I think we go to the movies to see stories we already know told anew and told exceptionally well. I think we go to the movies to have our spirits stirred, and I think we go to feel something more visceral too, something that reconnects us to real life. And I think we go to feel small in relation to something so, so big. That perspective is correct. It prompts us to be humble, and in humility, we are more likely to be loving fathers and mothers and siblings and citizens of this world. A good movie puts everything in its right place, body and soul, ourselves to each other, and even ourselves to our Creator.
A group of soldiers boards a helicopter.
Okay, it’s not really a helicopter. It doesn’t have rotors; it flies via the power of some sort of futuristic repulser technology. But it has open doors on each side. It ascends and descends and hovers. So, it’s a helicopter.
A group of soldiers boards a helicopter, and the bearded, burley, gruff guy puts what looks like a cassette in the helicopter’s tape deck. I register the reference to Apocalypse Now milliseconds before the song starts playing, so for an instant, I expect “Ride of the Valkyries.” But then something different fills the sky on the screen as well as the cavern of the theater where I’m sitting. It’s “Everything in its Right Place,” the opening track from Radiohead’s Kid A, a song that means as much to me, and to many people my age, as any other song. I’ve never heard it this loud before. It’s a song that has always vibrated in my soul. Watching The Creator, it vibrated my bones.
We liven an era of special-effects driven, science-fiction and fantasy films and television series. Almost everything is wizards, be they wizards in Manhattan, wizards in Middle Earth, or wizards among the stars. I love them all. Some of these fantastic tales are the stories that have most inspired me. But they haven’t felt real in twenty years, probably since Gandalf departed from the Grey Havens with Frodo at the end of The Return of the King. That scene is one of the most unreal in Jackson’s whole trilogy, and now it plays for me like a cinematic departure as well. As Gandalf sailed away, we left the physical world behind in our fantasy films in favor of an increasingly detailed but much less grounded CGI eternity. Many movies since have stirred my soul, but absent a visceral recognition of the world I inhabit, something movies like Apocalypse Now and other films made prior to the CGI revolution in the 1980s, they have rarely shaken by bones.
Gareth Edwards much be some kind of wizard because, while he has only made special-effects driven, science-fiction films, he makes movies you can feel like you feel it when a jet airplane breaks the sound barrier over your house. I cannot divine his secret methods. It’s something in the way he uses scale and sound, and it’s something to do with his proclivity for shooting his actors in real places no matter what CGI monstrosity is going to be added to the sky later.
His characters alway feel twinkly drawn, their inner lives outlined with bullet points but never expanded, their relationships are the stuff of elevator pitches, not the therapist’s couch. They are symbols of fatherhood and motherhood, siblings, and rebellious children. Honestly, I don’t care because put me and my loved ones in the footpath of a monster or a Death Star, and I’d become a concentrated version of myself too. Crises tend to simplify things, and Edwards’ characters are always a half-step ahead of the end of the world. And frankly, I’ll sacrifice subtle character beats for the feeling I get when Godzilla roars, when I see that Star Destroyer hovering over Jedha, and when The Creator’s NOMAD rains hell from the stratosphere on Southeast Asian refugee enclaves.
I just realized I haven’t told you anything about what this film is. A former special ops soldier is recruited to go back into territory controlled by artificially intelligent humanoids to locate and destroy a rumored super weapon. The weapon turns out to be an android that looks like a little girl. For… reasons… he decides to help her instead. Your mind is probably already buzzing with other movies this sound like. You’re not wrong. The list of references for The Creator would be longer than this review, and for many, the familiarity of the story will preclude them from enjoying it. They’ll be missing out on Edwards’ panache.
I don’t think we mostly go tot he movies for original stories anyway. If that were true, we’d have stopped going to most of the “big” movies twenty years ago. I think we go to the movies to see stories we already know told anew and told exceptionally well. I think we go to the movies to have our spirits stirred, and I think we go to feel something more visceral too, something that reconnects us to real life. And I think we go to feel small in relation to something so, so big. That perspective is correct. It prompts us to be humble, and in humility, we are more likely to be loving fathers and mothers and siblings and citizens of this world. A good movie puts everything in its right place, body and soul, ourselves to each other, and even ourselves to our Creator.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
A Haunting in Venice is a great ghost story. It’s not as scary as its trailer would have you believe, though it doesn’t have its moments of spine-tingling terror.
