THB #406: The Creator

beautiful sequence

Too much.

This has become an unfortunate recurring theme for me, as a critic, in the last couple of years. What is undermining so many potentially wonderful movies is not bad filmmaking or bad ideas or the thousand natural shocks that movies are heir to.

It’s just too much.

I can’t claim that I know the cause. But my somewhat educated guess leans to the idea that after 20 years of CG being so prominent and so much more complex, the ability to create visual magic has lead to a fear of not offering size, size, size over the required caution that limited the amounts of visual magic in the pre-CG era. Yes, a variation of the “shark is broken” thing from Jaws again.

It’s not just the “big” movies. I see it in dramas as well. There is a mindset about how movies and television are the same thing and that somehow, filmmakers need to do more to “deserve” to have a place on a theatrical screen. Utter bullshit.

There is also the indulgence of Streamers when dealing with very fine filmmakers who, all of a sudden, have no motivation to adjust the length or breadth of their films to indulge audiences who just aren’t that interested in every idea that came to mind.

There is a very real difference between seeing a movie in a theater with other human beings and sound that won’t bother your family in other rooms or neighbors and watching a movie on a television, no matter how big that TV. “Better” is a relative concept and I won’t go down that wormhole. But it is, absolutely, 100%, different.

I love movies in theaters. And I love movies on my television. Some movies are meant for that big screen and the focus of a theatrical venue. Some are just fine with a few distractions and the occasional pee or snack breaks.

But I digress…

The Creator is a film that should be not only great, but a classic of modern cinema. It‘s aspirations are big. It’s visuals are remarkable. And it’s ideas…

Too many.