Movie: The Creator (2023) Caution Spoiler Alert

 The Creator

Came out; 2023

Time; 2 hr 13 min

Watched: Amazon

Rated: PG-13 for violence, some bloody images and strong language

IMDB Rating; 6.8/10

Caution; Spoiler Alert

Staring;

John David Washington as Joshua

Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie

Gemma Chan as Maya

Allison Janney as Colonel Howell

Ken Watanabe as Harun

Story Line.

Amid a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua, a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife, is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war-and mankind itself.

Thoughts:

This is one of those movies where I asked so many “Why's”. I only ask that when things don't make sense. I get that along with the plot of the movie there has to be things that don't make sense but it drives me crazy.

This was pretty good besides my gripes above. It was interesting as AI is currently taking the world by storm and how many movies about bad robots do we need before we stop making them?

CAUTION; Major Spoiler Alert

In 2055, an artificial intelligence (AI) detonates a nuclear warhead over Los Angeles, California. In response, most of the Western nations wage war against AI to prevent humanity's extinction; they are being resisted by people of the so-called New Asia (consisting of Southeast Asia, Japan, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and parts of India) who continue to embrace AI. The military seeks to assassinate "Nirmata" the mysterious chief architect behind the AI advancements. The USS NOMAD (North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense) is developed as an advanced space station capable of launching destructive attacks from orbit.

U.S. Army sergeant Joshua Taylor is an undercover operative with his pregnant wife Maya Fey, whom the military believes to be the daughter of Nirmata. When military forces attack their home, exposing Taylor as a covert agent seeking to use Maya to find Nirmata, Maya runs away but is hit by a subsequent NOMAD strike.

Five years later, Taylor works as part of the ground zero cleanup crew in Los Angeles. He is approached by General Andrews and Colonel Howell to join a mission to destroy a new weapon engineered by Nirmata, "Alpha O", believed to be capable of destroying NOMAD and thus shifting the balance of the war in favor of AI. To recruit him, they play a video showing Maya alive, and suggest he might find and reunite with her if he joins the team. In New Asia, separated from the rest of the strike team, Taylor manages to enter the compound believed to hold the weapon but discovers only a robotic "simulant" in the form of a young girl. It is revealed that the girl has the ability to remotely control technology. Dubbing her "Alphie", Taylor disobeys Howell's orders to kill Alphie and the two travel to find Drew, Taylor's former commanding officer.

Examining Alphie, Drew tells Taylor she is capable of becoming the most powerful weapon on the planet as her abilities to control technology will grow exponentially. New Asian police attack Drew's apartment, killing his simulant girlfriend Kami, as Howell and squad member McBride close in. With Drew's help, Taylor locates Maya's beacon but does not find her before being attacked, and Drew is fatally wounded protecting him. Before Drew dies, he tells Taylor that the raid five years earlier had happened because of intelligence gathered that Maya was Nirmata. Taylor and Alphie are captured by New Asian forces led by Harun, a simulant soldier and former ally of Taylor's.

Harun states that the detonation in Los Angeles was caused by a human coding error, and that the U.S. government unfairly cast the blame on AI, who only wish to peacefully co-exist with humanity. After escaping his captors, Taylor rescues Alphie and prepares to flee as Howell leads an attack on the village. Alphie intervenes with her abilities but is gravely wounded by McBride. She is rushed to Maya, who Taylor learns has been in a coma since the strike on her home, tended to by simulant monks. Because simulants cannot harm Nirmata, she is "stranded" and unable to die. It is also revealed that Alphie was based on Taylor and Maya's unborn daughter, who had been scanned in utero. Distressed, Taylor takes Maya off life support as Howell and her forces arrive. They are killed by Harun, who tells Taylor NOMAD must be destroyed in order for the war to end.

Taylor and Alphie are captured by U.S. forces and taken to Los Angeles, where Taylor is forced to kill Alphie with an electro magnetic pulse weapon. However, Andrews later discovers this to be a ruse, and the pair escape before Alphie can be incinerated. Boarding a lunar shuttle at the Los Angeles Interplanetary Air and Space Port, Alphie forces the spacecraft to land aboard NOMAD just as Andrews orders a large-scale assault on remaining AI bases across the globe. Taylor plants a timed explosive while Alphie disables the ship's power. Before Taylor can arrive at the escape pod, Andrews activates a tentacled robot that prevents him from entering, and Taylor is forced to eject the vehicle with Alphie in it. As NOMAD explodes, halting the strike, Taylor embraces a simulant bearing Maya's likeness, whom Alphie had activated using a memory chip containing information Howell had downloaded from Maya’s brain just after she died. Taylor spends his last few moments with Maya as the NOMAD explodes, killing them both, while Alphie returns to Earth and witnesses the people celebrating NOMAD's destruction while cheering her as Nirmata.