The Creator (2023)

With a basic narrative that will feel very familiar to fans of popular media (a man has to ferry a child from A to B while trying to stop people from realising how important/powerful the child is), I can see why The Creator didn’t really make the impact that writer-director Gareth Edwards would have been hoping for. That’s a shame though, because The Creator is a visual feast that ends up being more than just the sum of its parts. 

John David Washington plays Joshua, a former soldier who is tasked with heading into enemy territory and taking ownership of a weapon that could turn the tide in an ongoing battle between humans and A.I. robots. The weapon doesn’t look like a weapon though. It looks like a child (Madeleine Yula Voyles), albeit a robo-child, and details are revealed that make the situation increasingly complicated for Joshua.

The cast is a big plus here, and Washington continues to deliver great performances in everything he’s attached to. Voyles is also very good, playing her innocent and powerful character with just the right amount of constant vulnerability. Gemma Chan doesn’t get much screentime, but she plays a pivotal role in the proceedings, and Allison Janney once again shows how effortlessly badass she can be, this time playing a badass military figure. Other familiar faces include Amar Chadha-Patel, Ralph Ineson, and Ken Watanabe, all being as reliable as our lead.

The other big plus, and the main selling point, is the gorgeousness of the full world that has been realised onscreen. Edwards knows how to stretch every dollar of a budget, and the spectacle he presents here rivals that of many movies that would have cost two or three times what this cost, if not more. Although it doesn’t take time to dwell on every detail, this is a film that feels as if a whole world keeps on turning just beyond the edges of the frame. The score from Hans Zimmer works in perfect harmony with the visuals, and sci-fi fans should find plenty to soak up and enjoy here.

The script is where things fall down. Working with Chris Weitz, Edwards is unable to craft any dialogue or set-pieces worthy of the world that the characters inhabit. There are very good moments here and there, and it’s still engaging thanks to the central characters, but things are dragged down by a mix of predictability and stretched plausibility. The backstory for Joshua doesn’t seem to fit pieces together as well as it’s supposed to, but maybe that’s just me being cynical.

Weakness be damned though. I loved The Creator. The strengths ultimately outweigh the weaknesses, and I am happy we have this kind of originality to savour, even if it’s as derivative and faltering as some other movies I might judge more harshly, depending on my mood and the timing.

8/10

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Dashcam (2021)

There is no point in me trying to act coy here. I hated Dashcam. Absolutely hated it. And I hated it all the more due to the fact that the main creative people involved, director Rob Savage and co., gave us one of the best horror movies that made innovative use of the global pandemic restrictions, Host.

Dashcam is, despite the title, a mix of dashcam footage and footage filmed through a couple of different phones. I guess “Whateverisclosesttohandcam” was judged to be far too wieldy a title. It shows Annie Hardy, playing Annie Hardy, having a very rough evening, and there is fun to be had, I think, from seeing bad things happen to a bad person (Hardy is an obnoxiously aggressive anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, MAGA-hat-wearing type). That is the aim anyway. I didn’t have fun. At all. I spent the runtime of the movie stuck with someone I hated, having her tiresome presence punctuated by tiresome jump scares and a LOT of awful camerawork (because it is “found footage” so it doesn’t matter that you cannot make out what is going on . . . obviously).

Look, from what I have heard recently, there are people who believe that Hardy is playing someone onscreen not a million miles removed from her real persona. I am willing to consider that she may have spent the past year or so performing an extended piece of Kaufman-esque performance art though. Unfortunately, any other aspect of her character fails to make up for the overwhelming unpleasantness. It is mind-boggling to think of anyone putting up with her crap (co-star Amar Chadha-Patel is an absolute saint at times) and she doesn’t even convince as a talented musician, considering she is preoccupied with creating rhymes that revolve around variations of the words “penis” and “ass”. Hardy, onscreen anyway, is a foot-stamping child. Movie characters do not have to be likeable, but having even one small saving grace, be it humour, skill, or a bit of charm, can really help make a movie much easier to endure.

And this is an endurance test. From the horrible camerawork throughout to the “amusing” rants and lyrics delivered by Hardy, from the nonsensical set up of everything to a set-piece that creates tension from someone, ummmm, feeling the need to rescue a small keyboard that then makes a loud noise at an inconvenient time. Almost every minute of Dashcam is excruciating, and nothing on the shocks and scares front does enough to outweigh the multitude of negatives.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Savage, alongside Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd, who showed such inventiveness and skill in their previous feature, has been replaced by some talentless clone behind the camera here. Where there was once an ability to create real tension and entertainment there now just seems to be a void, both technically and artistically.

There’s no reason to think that those involved didn’t realise what they were doing. There is little middle ground here, Savage has served up something that viewers will either love or hate. I hated it, thanks, and I doubt I will see a worse studio film this year.

2/10

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