The Creator

Official Australian release date: 28/9/23. Viewed: 27/9/23.
Director: Gareth Edwards
Actors: John David Washington, Madeline Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
Rating: M

‘The Creator’ is a new take on a trusted sci-fi trope of humanity vs “the other”. In this case, we have an almost Skynet-like rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots – set 50 years in the future – but then the film takes a bit of a turn, as we predominantly follow Joshua (Washington), Maya (Chan) and Alphie (Voyles) and their struggle between survival and doing the right thing. Probably Edwards’ best film since ‘Monsters’.

This is definitely not an outright sci-fi war film, like ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, and is not a Star Wars rip-off, but does take elements of both. There’s also elements of ‘Chappie’, ‘Elysium’, ‘Westworld’, but it’s all very focused on the humans vs AI struggle and the greyness of what’s right/best for the future, and that age-old sci-fi question: what does it mean to be human?

The cinematography is excellent, Washington and Voyles are great, Janney as the Colonel plays well against type, we get Watanabe as a wise robot and the final set-piece is pretty impressive, based around the NOMAD ship. Sometimes the tone/pace is a little off, and none of the reveals are particularly shocking, but it does add up to a pretty coherent, plausible and satisfying whole.

Overall: Good addition to the humans v robots record.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Official Australian release date: 7/9/23. Viewed: 3/9/23.
Directors: Jeff Rowe & Kyler Spears
Actors: Nicolas Cantu, Micah Abbey, Brady Noon, Shamon Brown Jr.
Genre: Action / Adventure         
Rating: PG

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‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ may be the 8^th TMNT film, but it’s clearly the best so far – even better than the 1990 original that most of us grew up with! While this is a predominantly-animated reboot, it doesn’t diss or tarnish anything from the original films of the 1990s cartoon, but rather remain faithful to them, while building a new interesting world with accurate takes on the teenagers. Here brothers Leonardo (Cantu), Michelangelo (Brown Jr), Raphael (Noon) and Donatello (Abbey) are likeable outcasts who yearn to be normal teenagers in the human world.

That all changes when a new villain emerges, who was created by the same radioactive ooze: Superfly (Ice Cube). The brothers find an ally in April O’Neil (Edebiri), who helps them set out to take down Superfly without Master Splinter (Chan) finding out. While there’s some obvious plot points, there’s also a lot of levity and self-aware jokes made. The banter between the boys is genuinely funny and realistic throughout, especially Donny.

Written & produced by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, with one of the directors of ‘The Mitchells vs the Machines’ this was always going to be handled with care and look unique – the animation and lighting throughout is superb for a cartoon, almost as good as the ‘Spider-Verse’ films. And what a voice cast – Jackie Chan, Maya Rudolph, Ice Cue, Paul Rudd, Rose Byrne, Seth Rogen, John Cena, Giancarlo Esposito, Hannibal Buress! The score is by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, outside their comfort zone, and the soundtrack is suitably modern with some old hip-hop and fun choices. All done in 100min!

Overall: Fun new take on everyone’s favourite green brothers!

Gav's Rating: 4 stars