'The Creator' review: A sci-fi tale created from spare parts of other sci-fi tales

Human beings vs. artificial intelligence has been a long-running conflict in movies, and as AI has become less of a far-flung concept and more of a reality of our daily lives, it has moved even closer to the forefront of blockbuster filmmaking. This summer, both "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One" and "Heart of Stone" centered around stopping bad guys from getting their hands on all-powerful AI software and taking over the world.

Now comes "The Creator" which, to its credit, puts a different spin on humans vs. AI dynamics. But that spin — the film takes a firmly pro-AI stance, which places the US of A in the dastardly villain role — is oddly handled, and co-writer and director Gareth Edwards doesn't have the gumption to fully, convincingly pull it off. "The Creator" winds up feeling like sci-fi leftovers, warmed up from last night's dinner.

Edwards ("Rogue One: A Star Wars Story") does give "The Creator" a handsome look; it has excellent special effects, sharp visuals and stylish title cards that separate the various chapters in the story. But its read on AI and the allegory it's attempting to tell come off clunky and inconsistent; it's like "T2" if James Cameron had taken the side of Skynet.

John David Washington, his voice frequently slipping into the rhythms of his father Denzel, plays Joshua, an ex-special forces agent who lost his right arm after what we're told was an AI detonated nuke wiped out a million people in Los Angeles. It's 2065, and humans and AI are locked in a full-on war.

In the territory now known as New Asia, Joshua loses his pregnant wife (Gemma Chan) to battle when the Nomad, a hovering U.S. military vessel, drops a bomb on a swath of open field. He's then sent to track down the mysterious, all-powerful Creator, who holds the key to AI and has the ability to end humanity.

What Joshua finds is Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), an AI in the form of an innocent young girl, who can control electronics by cupping her hands together in prayer formation. "The Creator" turns to a Save the Magical Child narrative as loyalties shift and the script, by Edwards and "About a Boy" screenwriter Chris Weitz, pulls back and examines the players in its war through a wider lens.

It's only moderately successful. "The Creator" is ploddingly paced: it's frontloaded and backloaded with story and action and thin for most of the middle, as it's locked in a series of middling chase sequences. It asks for an emotional investment in its characters that it doesn't fully earn, and the way it flips its scope is more baffling than it is profound. Sometimes it's downright silly, especially in its depictions of AI monks, wrapped in Tibetan-style robes living peacefully in the mountains. (Thankfully, we're spared the presence of a DalAI Lama.)

Rounding out the cast are Oscar winner Allison Janney, playing a tough military Colonel, and Ken Watanabe as a warrior bot tracking Joshua, both of whom are credible if not particularly challenged. Edwards calls on films such as "Blade Runner," "District 9" and the "Terminator" movies for visual and thematic inspiration.

Just don't look for him to say anything fresh or particularly coherent about the subject matter. "The Creator" mistakes schmaltz for heart, and it's flimsy on its own logic: The U.S. forces are firmly anti-AI, even as they employ the services of kamikaze AI bots, mobile bombs that look like trash cans with arms and legs, which they use to do their dirty work for them. So they're in favor of some robots, some of the time? Eh, don't think too hard about it, "The Creator" clearly hasn't.

'The Creator'

GRADE: C

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

Running time: 133 minutes

In theaters

agraham@detroitnews.com