Here’s One We Made Earlier [Review: The Creator]

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I’ve followed Gareth Edwards’ career with interest ever since his short film Factory Farmed won the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Competition in 2008. He went on to make the low-budget feature Monsters, in which two journalists make their way through alien-infested Mexico, followed by two mega-franchise movies, Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and now by his new film The Creator.

The Creator is a high-budget sci-fi/war movie epic with a cast of hundreds, a globe-spanning plot and CGI effects in almost every scene – but it’s an original story, not part of a franchise or cinematic universe. It concerns the rise of AI and the war between anti-AI Westerners and a pro-AI Asian nation, seen through the eyes of American soldier Joshua played by John David Washington. It’s well cast and well acted, particularly by Washington, national treasure Gemma Chan and child actor Madeleine Yuna Voyles, and together with the consistently good effects it’s an enjoyable and satisfying movie although I would say the plot is a little simplistic and one-sided, setting up a clear good vs evil story rather than engaging with the complexities of AI that we are grappling with in the real world.

I’ve always admired Edwards’ ability to use CGI intelligently to build believable worlds. Here it contributes to the setting of a believable alternative history where robots and AI became commonplace early in the 20^th century, extended into the near future when the action takes place. Although it has its own distinctive visual style The Creator is not without influence from other movies – in particular many of the robot designs have definitely been touched by Star Wars. Roger roger.

Score: Three stably diffused stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Update 7.10.2023: The Guardian has also reviewed this film. Their review is correct (apart from the star rating).

Independent Day [Review: Monsters]

You've read enough about Gareth Edwards' budget, micro-production crew and unconventional methodology on all the other websites. Here at Sci-Fi Gene we're not afraid to think outside the box, and this review of Monsters will take the unusual step of talking about the film.

The plot: photo-journalist Calver (Scoot McNairy) is forced to escort his editor's daughter Sam (Whitney Able) across Mexico back to the U.S. border after she is caught up in an airstrike. Their journey takes them alongside and eventually through the Infected Zone where, thanks to a NASA re-entry failure six years earlier, there be monsters.

Calver and Sam are three dimensional characters: Calver has to make a living but is ill at ease photographing tragedy. He's a complete failure at relationships and is in touch with his son but is not allowed to be his father. Sam is from another world, the rich editor's daughter who turns out to be made of stronger stuff than your average heiress - she speaks perfect Spanish, is able to make friends and put locals at ease while Calver rubs them up the wrong way, and seems to take the situations in her stride including Calver's drunken antics that leave them stranded at the seaport. She's engaged but is there perhaps a little ambivalence? Calver clearly resents the class divide between them as well as his unsolicited babysitting role. He sees Sam initially as some kind of rich wastrel, asking her "Do you work?" a question she never answers.

Calver and Sam's relationship develops - believably - as their journey takes them to stranger places, but this is no Hollywood love affair - they are brought together not by love at first sight, nor by Calver's inept flirting, but as the witnesses of awesome and terrible sights. There's a war of the genres going on here with post-apocalyptic sci-fi, survival horror and even political satire showing their heads from time to time, but it's the road movie and quirky indie romance that carry the day.

Monsters is a sensitive film with a lot of intimate hand-held camerawork and equally intimate performances. It's also very traditional in some ways: there's no camcorder or mocumentary formatting, and overt special effects are minimal while much of the backstory is told through the signposts and ruined helicopters in the background. Visually it's gorgeous, making the most of Mexican landscapes, rivers, sunsets and the occasional ziggurat. The Monsters themselves (that is of course, assuming the title refers to the aliens) are presented as creatures of both horror and beauty.

Factory Filmed

Monsters is released in cinemas across the UK from Friday. I'm looking forward to it - watch this space for the review. The movie has received a lot of positive advance press, mostly focussing on the low-budget and atypical production model: this article from the Guardian is typical. Two actors and a tiny crew took a road trip across Mexico seeking out atmospheric locations and shooting scenes along the way, a lot of the dialogue was improvised, and director Gareth Edwards then edited and post-produced the film, tentacles and all, in After Effects on his laptop. More or less.

Gareth Edwards entered Sci-Fi London's 48 Hour Film Challenge three years ago, seeing it as an opportunity to test out a depth-of-field adaptor he'd just built for his camera. The result was the 2008 winning entry Factory Farmed - which surely must have helped when Gareth was pitching the Monsters concept. Inspired by the 2008 entries including Gareth's, I had a lot of fun making films for this competition in 2009 and 2010 and plan to enter again in future.

Factory Farmed: winner of SFL48 2008

For the benefit of all the journalists who are enthused about Monsters: while I share your excitement about this particular release, indie and low-budget films are not new, and Danny Boyle is not the only respected director who started out using guerilla filmmaking techniques. Also it has always been possible to spend a massive Hollywood budget and end up with a box-office flop. It is true that post production and effects tools have become more accessible - including many freeware applications such as my preferred tool Blender - but it's not really about the tools: a good script, good direction (both theatrical and artistic) good character performances and good editing are as key as ever.

Low budget filmmaking is different though. For example, in a more traditional studio there is a tension between the director and the producer, whose role is basically to persuade the director that he can still achieve his artistic vision with only three elephants instead of six. If the director has always come from the angle of what he or she can achieve without spending anything, then this tension is not needed in the first place and there might not be a need to separate the director/producer roles in the same, rigid way. I suspect the ideal arrangement is for two people with a fairly close relationship of some sort to hold both roles but play to their own individual strengths, and this might be why there are so many successful brother-brother partnerships in cinema.