Why The Creator’s Reviews Are So Positive

The first reviews for The Creator are overwhelmingly positive, which gives Gareth Edwards’ movie a very high Rotten Tomatoes score. The 2023 sci-fi movie is an original work from the director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Godzilla that puts its focus on a war between humans and AI. Excitement for The Creator has been high ever since the first footage debuted and elicited strong reactions. It also helps that Edwards has an incredible track record for delivering sci-fi stories done on large scales with personal human characters, resulting in all the director’s previous movies receiving favorable reviews.

The originality of The Creator is one of the most exciting elements, as it brings Edwards back to the type of storytelling that launched his filmmaking career. Much has also been made about how impressive the movie looks visually considering the cheaper cost of production. The Creator‘s budget is a fraction of most Hollywood blockbusters, but that is not evident on the screen. With a strong cast headlined by John David Washington also involved and the A.I. commentary coming at a critical point in Hollywood, the hope was that Edwards’ movie would once again earn a positive critical response. The Creator‘s reviews confirm that this is the case.

The Creator’s Reviews Praise The Visuals, Originality, & AI Commentary

Following the hyped early reactions for The Creator, full reviews posted after the embargo lifted have confirmed the most common points of praise from critics. The visuals crafted by Gareth Edwards, cinematographers Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer, and various other crew members and VFX artists are pinpointed as one of the movie’s greatest strengths. The Creator is also clearly a refreshing major studio release thanks to its originality in the sci-fi landscape instead of being another franchise play based on an existing IP, making it the perfect Dune 2 replacement. How the movie tackles AI also resonates considering how prominent the technology has become.

Screen Rant

The Creator is a visually stunning epic and a feat of original storytelling on a massive scale no matter which way you look at it.

BBC

The futuristic CGI is incorporated so seamlessly that the spell is never broken. Even when robots, simulants and armoured hovercraft are on screen, you can’t see the joins between the physical and the digital.

USA Today

The moving and eye-popping thriller, starring a never-better John David Washington, dives into the hot-button topic of artificial intelligence but more importantly mankind’s tendency toward war and how we treat those different than us.

Empire

It’s all visually flawless too, which is all the more surprising, considering that budget — there are movies that cost three times more and look like crap. The Creator makes you realize that there really is little excuse for blockbuster dross. And while this doesn’t quite hit the heights of those that inspired it (it is at times blunter and broader than it needs to be), it’s a big reach, with heart and soul to spare. It’s uplifting on every level.

The Guardian

It’s an intriguing, stimulating, exhilarating movie, which really does address – with head and heart – the great issue of our age, AI. I have to say that the splurge of action spectacle towards the very end means that some of the narrative tendons slacken a bit and the film loses focus on specific jeopardy. But there’s a tremendous boldness here and a readiness to conjure up an entire created universe.

The Creator’s Craftsmanship Makes Up For A Weaker Script

While the majority of reviews for The Creator are positive, that does not mean that the movie is without its flaws. The biggest issue that pops up throughout various critics’ thoughts is a weaker script. It appears that the story written by Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz does not quite reach the heights of some of the best sci-fi movies of all time. While this might hinder the overall enjoyment of the movie for some, the craftsmanship and originality on display appear to still be enough to make The Creator enjoyable for the majority of viewers.

THR

It’s too bad the movie’s visual polish and inventiveness are applied to a hackneyed story and one-dimensional characters.

Inverse

The Creator is a visually stunning but emotionally hollow effort from the Rogue One director that mistakes its inspired vision of a new kind of sci-fi world for greatness. It’s clear that, in its bid to become the first original sci-fi movie in years, The Creator is just a half-baked pastiche of much better sci-fi before it — and one with a much more confused message than it obviously intended.

LA Times

“The Creator,” too, is something of a jumble, what with its gorgeous visuals distracting you, at least for its first hour, from a sluggish story about a reluctant shepherd caring for a child possessing supernatural powers that might save humanity — or eradicate it entirely.

Seattle Times

There are lots of ideas rattling around in it — about artificial intelligence, about racism, about American aggression on the world stage, about the future of humanity. And rattle and clang they do. And also clunk. The various elements are not well integrated.

Washington Post

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.

It is thanks to these mostly positive reviews that The Creator‘s Rotten Tomatoes score has debuted at 81%, based on 89 reviews. It is the second-best reviewed movie of Gareth Edwards’ career based on this score, falling just behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s 84%. There is a strong likelihood that the score will fluctuate a bit as more reviews pour in, with critics overall liking the movie more than Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critics so far. Hopefully, the positive reviews and Rotten Tomatoes score for The Creator translate to even more audience members in theaters.