Le Créateur

The Creator est une réussite technique impressionnante malgré son « modeste » budget de 80 millions de dollars et cela vient du fat qu'avec ses visuels somptueux et sa grandiosité, il surpasse tous les sci-fi surproduits et artificiels de ces dernières années. Malheureusement, le même enthousiasme ne peut être partagé pour le scénario, dont la trame est un schéma à la fois éculé et axé sur une multitude de coïncidences et de décisions étranges de la part des personnages, au point qu'en y réfléchissant un peu, on en perd son latin. Et c'est bien dommage, parce que c'est un film qu'on a envie d'aimer. (21/11/2023)

The Creator est un film de science-fiction étonnamment moyen, qui n’attire, ne surprend ni n’impressionne de quelque manière que ce soit par sa mise en images. La plupart des scènes se déroulent dans des huttes situées dans des champs asiatiques et, de surcroît, dans l’obscurité. Quant à la ville futuriste, elle semble tout droit sortie de Blade Runner. Et les lourds engins qui évoluent dans la jungle, d’un film de James Cameron. Mais il y a aussi le problème de John David Washington et de ses capacités limitées en tant qu’acteur : il n’est pas du tout crédible en tant que transfuge convaincu du côté des rebelles, ni en tant que protecteur de l’innocence des enfants. Et il devient lassant à la longue avec le deuil répétitif de son ancienne femme, qui, de plus, ne parvient pas à susciter l’émotion. La seule actrice qui apporte un peu de vie au film est la petite Madeleine Yuna Voyles. Deux étoiles et demie. (02/10/2023)

A film whose creators stutter, can’t remember the beginning of a sentence and constantly run the gamut from “original sci-fi” to clichés and desperate banalities that mask one thing: The Creator says nothing relevant about the phenomenon of AI, which is merely another spectacular decorative element in a film that’s completely dependent on design. Neither the plot nor the world of the film makes sense; given how much space The Creator has, it never creates a coherent and comprehensible world. By comparison, even the didactic Elysium comes across as an engrossing fictional world. Edwards’ directing tries to go in depth, but it rather unconvincingly jumps from details to the big picture, from the present to the past. Some of the actors’ lines really could have been written only by Chris Weitz... Washington plays an utterly two-dimensional character who, through his suffering, only reinforces the impression that The Creator demands grand emotions, to which he is absolutely not entitled. Instead, it has the same feelings of emptiness and lifelessness as Godzilla and Rogue One. (27/09/2023)

I would never cast young Washington in a leading role again, his acting bad (and I'm taking off one star for that). Otherwise I found this film terribly rich, both visually and emotionally. Gareth Edwards takes us through several locations with a succession of gorgeous images, whether it's a city with dozens of glowing neon signs like in Blade Runner, an Asian landscape where ancient Buddhist culture clashes interestingly with modern sci-fi elements, or the Nomad super spacecraft that Kosinski seems to have invented for Oblivion. I was especially impressed with Asia and how thoughtfully and seamlessly the modern architecture builds on the old buildings, creating such an interesting contrast, and the viewer immersion is incredible. I'm not a fan of AI, but I still didn't mind that Edwards relativizes it and actually puts it in the position of a positive element, just like Blade Runner did 40 years ago, the story thus gets a charge that kept my attention throughout and the few logical lapses didn't ruin it for me. Unfortunately, Edwards is a misunderstood filmmaker. Whether it is with Godzilla, which was a clever homage to the TOHO's films, or here, with the heavy-duty sci-fi that isn't being made much these days. I can only be comforted by the fact that Blade Runner was also critically panned and rejected by audiences in its day, so .... maybe it'll come out in a few decades too, Gareth. (26/11/2023)

And the bubble has definitely burst, so if anyone thought that Gareth Edwards was a directorial genius who was forced out of Rogue One by the evil Disney, and Tony Gilroy only “finished his job for him”, they're in for a nasty clash with reality. The Creator is a beautiful looking film. Physical, full of cool gizmos, gadgets, robots, tanks, rockets, and generally beautiful to look at. It looks very decent in motion too, Edwards is quite adept at war action, and at some points his latest film is reminiscent of Terminator or Avatar; and also of the film we've been looking forward to since the trailers. But then there's a lot of things he can't do. Edwards is a brilliant designer, a decent executor and a lousy storyteller. The longer I watched The Creator, the more I actually felt sorry for him, because behind that veneer of great production design is a woefully banal story, told in an unimaginative and uninteresting way. All the clichés you can think of are there, even the ones that you'll think would be a bit embarrassing if someone used them. Besides, The Creator tries desperately to pretend to be something more and offer some philosophizing in addition to the simple story, but Edwards is woefully unable to work with it. And the more he tries to look clever and multi-layered, the more it becomes apparent how superficial and boring this film is as the running time progresses. Nice, but... shitty, I guess not, but just not very good, either. (28/09/2023)