Lacking nuance and seeping with white-liberal guilt, The Creator squanders its remarkable world-building craft with a misguided and borderline unethical story on what it is to be human in an advanced age of artificial intelligence.

With every passing year it feels like the science-fiction of the past is becoming the reality of the future. This is especially so in the case of artificial intelligence, with advances in AI programming raising all matter of concern that will only increase in time.  According to The Creator, however, AI shouldn’t be feared but embraced as the next step in human evolution.

Directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) and co-written by Chris Weitz (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), The Creator espouses that humans are comparable to AI in that we are nothing more than a result of programming, with experience our software, and our brains and hearts a complex case of hardwiring. For those among us who reject such tech-obsessed drivel, The Creator will be a frustrating exercise to endure.

Set during a future war between the human race and AI forces, The Creator stars John David Washington as Joshua, an ex-special forces agent grieving the death of his wife Maya (Gemma Chan) who is recruited by the US military to infiltrate the enemy territory of New Asia, hunt down and kill the Creator (the elusive architect of advanced AI), and locate the secret weapon with which the Creator plans to end mankind.

The “secret weapon” turns out to be a young AI girl named Alpha-Omega, or “Alphie”, a miracle of AI engineering that is presented as a messiah figure created to stop the war and cleanse the west – aka the United States of America – of their imperialistic sins.

In the casting of young Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie, Edwards hopes to bring audiences onboard his pro-AI manifesto by having a cute-as-buttons symbol of pure AI innocence as its poster child. It is an emotionally manipulative tactic to be sure, but also an effective one with young Voyles providing more charisma than her dull leading co-star John David Washington, who somehow continues to nab leading roles in big projects despite having zero on-screen presence.

Although made with a shiny veneer of Blade Runner style production design and Star Wars inspired robot creature designs, The Creator posits a troubling message that the fight against the advance of artificial intelligence is one against the progress of humanity. Furthermore, Edwards portrayal of the US as nothing more than gung-ho warmongers on the “wrong side of history” - a tactic that had reached its peak in the similarly themed Avatar - is eye-rolling in its application of Vietnam War inspired imagery.

More confounding is how a film titled The Creator, that constantly flirts with religious themes throughout the film, never once engages in discussion about the soul or the role of God in a traditional and true context. Perhaps Edwards couldn’t or wouldn’t delve into the depths of divinity and its intimate relation with mankind for fear of usurping the films’ themes of AI as an offshoot in the story of humanity?

Regardless, when it comes to The Creator, there is no soul in this new machine.