The movie “The Innovator”… A different vision of artificial intelligence that angers critics | art

The film “The Creator” began showing in cinemas around the world at the end of September 2023. It is a science fiction work, starring John David Washington, Allison Janney, and Gemma Chan, and directed by Gareth Edwards, who also co-wrote.

The film achieved revenues of $101 million against a budget of $80 million, and its soundtrack, composed by the famous musician Hans Zimmer, has been nominated for two awards so far. It is expected to start showing on electronic platforms soon, amid hopes that this will represent additional income for cinematic films, which are sometimes relied upon. More than the cinema show income.

In love with artificial intelligence

In light of the high wave of fears and attacks on artificial intelligence, which was one of the most important reasons behind the strike of writers and actors in Hollywood this year, the movie “The Innovator” comes to present an alternative vision for this technology, a vision that brought it negative reviews in some critical articles, such as the one I wrote. American critic Christy Lemire on Roger Ebert’s website, in which she attacked the film because it contradicts everything that the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are fighting for.

The events of the movie “The Innovator” take place in the future, specifically in the year 2070, in which a war breaks out between humans and artificial intelligence. After years of developing this intelligence and using it to make human lives easier, he was accused of dropping a nuclear bomb on the American city of Los Angeles, causing the death of a million people. The globe is divided into an anti-digital camp represented by the West, led by the United States of America, and another on their side that blends with them to form a society that does not differentiate between machines and humans, and is located in what is called “New Asia.”

The film’s hero, Joshua (John David Washington), is an American fighter. The viewer gets to know him at first as he resides on a remote island with his Asian wife, who is pregnant in her final months. They live in peace and love until the giant American “Nomad” plane appears that attacks the island and its people, and the wife discovers that her husband He belongs to the camp that hates digital people, so she runs away from him to her death.

Five years pass for the sad Joshua, who refuses to cooperate with the American administration after he killed his wife and his expected son, until the authorities bring him evidence that his wife is alive, and bargain with him to facilitate access to her on the condition that she helps in destroying the latest digital weapons, the mysterious weapon capable of ending… This war.

Joshua moves to New Asia, and there he begins a journey that appears to be military on the surface, but is spiritual in its core, during which he learns about the other side and begins to gradually change his principles.

The film “The Innovator” presents an uncommon view of artificial intelligence. Instead of seeing it as an enemy that must be eliminated because it is a substitute for humans on Earth, it becomes another form of life, merging with humans and forming a mixed society, some of whose members are robots, and others are cyborgs – that is, Half human, half robot – and in this society, no side is superior to the other, but rather the values ​​of cooperation, love, and brotherhood prevail.

America is against the culture of love

After many films that glorify the status of the American army and its heroism, in recent years a wave of films has begun that criticizes the military establishment that uses brute force in its inappropriate manner, and looks with suspicion at successive American governments and their political decisions.

The film “The Innovator” belongs to the last category of films. From the first third of it, it becomes clear that it divides the world into good and evil, and places the American army in the second category, as they are the raiders who see artificial intelligence as an “other” worthy of killing and violence.

While the good side of the new Asia is represented by its vision that is open to others, and as the film was filmed in Thailand, the director resorted to Asian cultures to become the basis on which he relied in imagining the new Asia, starting from the clothes that resemble the clothes of Buddhist monks, to the rhyming phrases filled with spiritual wisdom on… The language of the characters, which gave the film a distinct and different character from the usual science fiction films that see the future represented by robots and people wearing uniforms with cold colors and mechanical sounds.

The general framework of the film “The Innovator” is different from mainstream science fiction films, but on the contrary, the scenario was disappointing, especially in the development of the plot, which becomes very predictable after the first half hour of the film. Even Joshua’s shift from hating artificial intelligence to protecting it did not reflect a development in Personality, as much as it was a sudden transformation, highlights his superficiality in choosing the side he takes.

The rest of the characters were rudely neglected, and they appeared as mere stereotypes taken from other films, led by the character of army officer Howell (Allison Janney), who had previously won an Oscar. This role did not provide her with any space for creativity, but rather she fell into the circle of violent army officers who do not… They only understand the language of commands, as well as the character of the wife Maya (Gemma Chan), who despite being the driver of events and the motivation behind the adventure undertaken by Joshua and his dramatic transformations, her space on the screen was limited, and she is nothing more than a traditional image of the beautiful Asian woman who represents motherhood, peace and love in exchange for violence. Army.

The film “The Innovator” presented a vision that contradicted the prevailing view of artificial intelligence – a thorny topic at the present time in Hollywood – but despite this different approach, its screenplay let it down, and it appeared as a traditional science fiction film in the end.