The Washington Post-The Creator aims for sentimental lands at artificial
September 26, 2023 4 min 663 words
《The Creator》是一部具有浓厚的科幻和战争电影元素的作品，最引人注目的是影片创作者将美国塑造成反派的角色。故事设定在未来大约40年，导演兼编剧 Gareth Edwards 想象了美国对新亚洲的大规模毁灭行动，而新亚洲则是一个容纳多种民族和语言、接受人工智能机器和被称为“模拟人”的部分人类-机器混合体的国家。 美国禁止了人工智能，因为他们将其归咎于摧毁洛杉矶的核爆炸。与此同时，新亚洲则是一个容忍的仙境，接受不同种族和语言，也接受AI脑机器人和“模拟人”。美国发起了一场旨在消灭具有AI意识的生物的战争，一开始的战争情节让人联想到越南战争，导演将《现代启示录》列为灵感之一，很快升级成了“Oppenheimer”的A炸弹噩梦之一。 故事的核心人物是约书亚（《信条》的明星约翰·大卫·华盛顿饰演），他身处新亚洲的一部分，看起来像是一个泰国海滨度假胜地，他是一名战争创伤的退伍军人，他的失去的手臂被机械手臂替代，使他成为了一名半机械人。这一点非常重要，因为《The Creator》的道德之一是接受所有生物，即使它们部分或完全是机器。 约书亚与玛雅（英国华人演员吉玛·陈饰演）结婚，他们期待着一个孩子。但是，当美国狠毒地袭击他们时，这对夫妻的家庭和平生活化为乌有，而这场袭击的领导者竟然是艾莉森·詹妮（是的，在这里，《西翼》的明星扮演了类似于“黑色旅团”中汤姆·贝伦格的无情角色）。 现在约书亚似乎成了一名鳏夫，他被卷入了美国的一项努力，要摧毁由神秘的“创作者”尼玛塔制造的新超级武器。这个威胁最终是一个模拟人，外表是一个6岁的女孩（玛德琳·尤娜·沃伊尔斯饰演），她被昵称为“阿尔菲”。像所有模拟人一样，阿尔菲的头侧有一个大的金属衬里的洞（为什么？《The Creator》没有解释这类问题）。尽管如此，她相当可爱，约书亚很容易地将对他失去的孩子的父爱传递给了她。 因此，约书亚发现自己与诸如哈伦（肯·瓦坦贝饰演，曾在爱德华兹的“哥斯拉”中出演）等模拟人一起与美国作战。为了保护阿尔菲，约书亚前往或追踪她到各种地点，包括一个庞大的美国飞行堡垒。美国给这个令人不安的军事飞船命名为“NOMAD”，但为了向爱德华兹执导的“星球大战外传：侠盗一号”致敬，让我们称它为“死星”。 爱德华兹自2016年的“星球大战外传：侠盗一号”以来没有制作电影，据称那是一个麻烦重重的项目。通过《The Creator》，他略微朝着2010年的首部作品《怪兽》的策略迈进，该片的预算不到50万美元。虽然爱德华兹的新电影不是低预算制作，但制片人采用了一些成本削减措施，比如大部分在实地拍摄，使用相对便宜的数码相机。 特效后期加入，效果不一，画面有时昏暗，CGI效果并不总是完美地融入整体。与另一位“星球大战外传：侠盗一号”的老将克里斯·维茨共同编写，《The Creator》一开始显得有点令人困惑和仓促，并经常出现大规模的人群场景。但电影的最终野心是要成为一部感人至深的影片，专注于少数角色的命运，当世界在他们周围崩溃和燃烧时。 虽然一些观众可能会流下眼泪，但其他人可能会觉得故事的感伤部分缺乏吸引力。《The Creator》过于注重事件、特效和爆炸，未能发展出能赋予主要角
2023-09-13T17:55:33.143Z
The boldest thing about “The Creator,” a mash-up of mostly familiar sci-fi and war-movie tropes, is the filmmakers’ choice of a villain: the United States of America. Set some 40 years in the future, director and co-writer Gareth Edwards’s movie imagines an American campaign of mass destruction against New Asia, a sort of pan-Asian restaurant of a country.
The United States has banned artificial intelligence after blaming it for a nuclear explosion that destroyed Los Angeles. New Asia, meanwhile, is a wonderland of tolerance that accepts not just multiple ethnicities and languages but also AI-brained robots and the part-human cyborgs called “simulants.” The United States sets out to eliminate any creatures with AI consciousness in a war that initially suggests Vietnam — the director names “Apocalypse Now” as one of his inspirations — and soon escalates into one of “Oppenheimer’s” A-bomb nightmares.
Poised to be at the center of the American offensive is Joshua (“Tenet” star John David Washington), who’s living undercover in a part of New Asia that looks to be a Thai beach resort. He’s a war-scarred veteran whose missing arm has been replaced with a robotic one, making him something of a cyborg himself. That’s significant, since one of “The Creator’s” morals is the acceptance of all beings, even those that are partly or entirely machines.
Joshua is rapturously married to Maya (British-Chinese performer Gemma Chan), who’s cool with simulants, and they’re expecting a baby. But the couple’s domestic tranquility is blown to smithereens when the United States viciously attacks — led by, of all people, Allison Janney. (Yes, the “West Wing” star here plays something akin to the ruthless Tom Berenger role in “Platoon.”)
Now apparently a widower, Joshua is brought into an American effort to destroy a new superweapon made by the mysterious Nirmata, whose name is Nepalese for “creator.” This threat turns out to be a simulant with the form of a 6-year-old girl (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), who acquires the nickname Alphie. Like all simulants, Alphie has a large metal-lined hole in the side of her head. (Why? “The Creator” doesn’t address questions like that.) Still, she’s pretty cute, and Joshua easily transfers his paternal feelings for his lost child to her.
And so Joshua finds himself fighting the United States alongside such simulants as Harun (Ken Watanabe, who starred in Edwards’s “Godzilla”). Attempting to protect Alphie, Joshua travels with or in pursuit of her to various locations, including a massive American flying fortress. The United States named the ominous military airship NOMAD, but in honor of Edwards’s direction of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” let’s call it the Death Star.
Edwards hasn’t made a movie since 2016’s “Rogue One,” reportedly a troubled project. With “The Creator,” he moves ever so slightly toward the strategies of his 2010 debut, “Monsters,” which was made for less than $500,000. Edwards’s new movie is hardly a low-budget production, but the filmmakers did employ such cost-cutting measures as shooting mostly on location and using relatively inexpensive digital cameras.
Special effects were inserted later, with varying degrees of success. The visuals are sometimes murky, and the CGI additions not always persuasively integrated into the whole.
Co-written by another “Rogue One” veteran, Chris Weitz, “The Creator” begins frantically (and a bit confusingly) and often features sweeping crowd scenes. But the movie’s ultimate ambition is to be a tear-jerker, focused intimately on the fates of just a few characters as the world crashes and burns around them.
While susceptible viewers may shed a tear, others will find the sentimental aspects of the story uninvolving. Overloaded with incidents, effects and explosions, “The Creator” fails to develop the personalities and relationships that would give its central characters an affecting humanity. The movie’s attempt to touch the heart comes off as, well, artificial.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains violence, some bloody images and strong language. 133 minutes.