THE CREATOR

We'll be honest with you, because credit belongs where it's earned: this is a beautifully made movie. Director Gareth Edwards has built a thrilling, crowd-pleasing science fiction film with one of the best-made third acts in recent years, and it even reaches for something real — a hero willing to lay down his life, a prayer to Jesus that seems to be answered.

But the film is built on a viewpoint we can't send you into. Except for one minor character, every white American on screen is despicable and cruel, while every Asian person, robot, and android is kind and good. The source calls this exactly what it is: an incredibly overt, bizarre, Anti-American, politically correct, racist message. Add roughly 51 obscenities, a Jesus profanity, three GD profanities, and strong action violence, and the good elements can't carry the load.

So here is the plain answer: skip it. The craft is real, and so is the poison underneath — and this time the poison wins.

The year is 2070. After artificially intelligent machines set off a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, the United States banned all AI and declared war on the Asian nations that embraced it — deploying a gigantic flying machine that can wipe out whole villages.

Joshua, a black American soldier with a prosthetic arm, is sent behind enemy lines with a commando team to destroy a new weapon so powerful it could obliterate the American forces. The weapon turns out to be something he never expected — and something he cannot bring himself to destroy.

Four stars, and they're honestly earned on craft alone. Gareth Edwards — whose Rogue One some critics called the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back — has made a thrilling, impressive, crowd-pleasing action movie, and its third act is among the best-built in recent years.

That's what makes the verdict painful rather than easy. The filmmaking is genuinely excellent; the world it serves is genuinely ugly. When we say skip it, we're not saying the film is incompetent — we're saying a well-made vehicle for a racist, Anti-American message is still a vehicle we can't recommend. Excellence in the service of a bad idea is still a bad idea, more persuasively delivered.

The Creator mixes a pagan foundation with real Christian gestures — and then wraps both around a message that should stop a discerning viewer cold. On the redemptive side, the hero prays to Jesus for help and the prayer seems answered; he is ready to sacrifice his life to save a defenseless little android; compassion drives him; and the whole movie longs to stop a vicious war. Those are not nothing.

But the film's dominant conviction is its poison. Except for a single minor character, every white American is depicted as despicable and evil, while every Asian person, robot, and Asian android is nice and good. The source names this bluntly as a politically correct, Anti-American, racist viewpoint — and it's the film's overarching frame, not a stray line. There's also a minor nod to evolution along the way.

One more distortion worth naming: the movie is vague but implies its robots and androids carry human characteristics, even the capacity for good and evil. In reality, machines — even intelligent ones — are just machines; whatever human-seeming traits they show were placed there by human programmers.

The film's true ache is for an end to war and for a love worth dying for. Scripture points past both to the peace and the sacrifice that actually save: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

There's a genuinely great-looking movie here — a thrilling, four-star piece of filmmaking with a hero who prays and a story that hates war. But it's built on a racist, Anti-American premise and thick with profanity, and no amount of polish redeems that foundation. So our answer stays what it was: skip it. Looking for something to watch together instead? Try our latest family-friendly picks.