Humanity has been at war with AI for several years now, after they dropped an atomic bomb on L.A. and have become mankind’s enemy. Joshua (John David Washington) is a former special forces agent that lost his wife in a cover attack while trying to kill AI creator Nirmata, that it´s said, has been developing a mysterious and deadly weapon that’ going to wipe out all human beings.

The movie isn’t exactly a bout a war between AI and humans, as much as the humans hunting all robots, who have been accepted as part of civilization by Asia, and are just defending themselves. They formed bonds, families, go to work and even have developed strong emotional bonds that make them even mourn their dead. As Joshua hears from his wife Maya (Gemma Chan): “When the war started, they protected me. They took better care of me better than humans would have”, and the answer she gets from him, it’s exactly what reflects the central and internal conflict of the film and our protagonist: “They are not people Maya, just programming”… Is being “real” different just because you have a metal heart? Who’s the real menace here then? Could you destroy this lethal weapon if you found out that it is just a little girl? His heart and his mission collide when he meets “Alphie”, the child that will end the war.

Gareth Edwards truly delivers one of the best looking films of the year, it’s artistic direction, CGI, impecable music by Hans Zimmer, and cinematography (great work by Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer) is truly impecable, with a great idea for a story, that limps in some of it’s parts, one part of that problem that the resolution feels a little too much “Deus Ex Machina”, and the other being JD Washington, who never makes you feel empathy with his character, specially when he tries to protect the girl but you never get that feeling that he truly starts caring for her. A relationship that feels that it could have been a little deeper and important.

Yes, this is one of those movies that makes you see how cruel mankind can be, because it doesn’t matter in the end who gets in it’s way, human or robot, it’s going to kill all just to achieve it’s goal, even if that means slaying a little girl whose biggest issue with dying it’s knowing she won’t reach heaven because she is a machine (Yes, even AI ends up with it’s own beliefs and religion). It’s no wonder it’s been generating buzz and debate with those subjects, combined with a still very actual subject like discrimination.

In the end it’s that the movie feels like a little butter spread over a lot of bread… It doesn’t really know if it wants to be a war movie or a film about self-discovery. It doesn’t know if it wants to talk about mankind or existence, or religion, or soul. As a result, the core conflict of what it means to be alive of becomes diluted. And it might lose the audience.

The Creator could have become an iconic movie, but it won’t. While Gareth Edwards’ execution could’ve been better, the film is still something that needs to be seen. Not just because of all the timely themes it explores, but because it offers some introspection about what we could do better with ourselves.