The Creator: why you need to experience Gareth Edwards' sci-fi epic on the big screen

In the mood for some grandiose big-screen imagery, action and weighty themes? Then don't miss The Creator, the new movie from Monsters, Godzilla and Rogue One filmmaker Gareth Edwards. Scroll down and discover why you should seek it out on the biggest screen you can find.

1. It amalgamates many elements of your favourite sci-fi movies

From The Terminator to Avatar, Blade Runner to District 9, The Creator is bursting at the seams with arresting imagery that reinforces science-fiction's capacity for broadening the mind. Bodily augmentations, humanoid androids, spaceships and teeming cityscapes are just some of the sights on offer in this story of a world divided between East and West, android and human, as humanity's future lies in the balance after a devastating war against A.I.

2. It's an intriguing twist on the Genesis Creation narrative

The Creator posits an instantly intriguing premise: what if robots were no longer created by humans but able to propagate amongst themselves? What does this mean in terms of the next stage of evolution? The movie's dense Biblical parallels are mirrored by allusions to Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The film is also chaptered, further reinforcing the sense that this is a movie with literacy on its side, as well as gargantuan action.

3. It looks and sounds stunning

As one would expect from the director of Rogue One, The Creator is painted on an epic scale. The making of the movie is as intriguing as its main premise: despite the film's seamless blend of physical performance, CGI and actual locations (more than 80 were used in total), the film was shot almost guerilla-style with relatively lo-fi camerawork (no IMAX cameras here). Extensive pre-visualisations (a computerised mapping out of the terrain) were fully realised in the post-production process, allowing the movie's world to take shape.

What you therefore get is an arresting mix of exotic locations, many of them captured in Thailand, mixed with a teeming onslaught of humans and automatons fighting for supremacy in the landscape. Then you have the sonorous score from the Oscar-winning Hans Zimmer whose moving choral arias and requiems allude to the movie's dense mythological and religious weight.

4. The relationship between Joshua and Alfie will capture your heart

The movie centres on Joshua (John David Washington), a hardened ex-special forces operative who lost his wife Maya (Gemma Chan) in the war between man and machine. When he's tasked with tracking down an all-powerful weapon designed by the mysterious entity Nirmata, Joshua sees it as a chance to level the playing field for humanity.

However, said weapon is revealed to be a biomechanical child, one blessed with extraordinary powers and who is later dubbed Alfie by Joshua. The former is played in sensitive and intuitive fashion by screen newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles. And when we say that their on-screen relationship will tug at the heartstrings in a Steven Spielbergian manner, we really mean it.

5. It has its finger on the button

Conversations around A.I. couldn't be more topical at the moment. Be at the forefront of the conversation by experiencing The Creator on the biggest screen you can find and plugging into its resonant and melancholic themes. Will humans and machines be able to find an accord? What does it mean to advance into a future whereby we'll become more dependent on automation and technology? And can a machine ever assimilate intangible human emotion?

All of this and more is on display in one of the year's grandest sci-fi spectacles, so don't miss it.