'The Creator' is timely, terrific, and worth seeing on the big screen

NEW YORK -- A new movie called "The Creator" asks us to consider a future where humans are at war with artificial intelligence, and AI is winning.

The movie comes from the director of "Star Wars: Rogue One" and "Godzilla."

It is as timely as it is terrific.

It's a movie that engages the heart and the mind equally, and I have been looking forward to this moment when I can urge you to go and see it, on the biggest screen you can find.

"The Creator" is the rarest of all science fiction movies, the one that has heart, the one that asks what does it mean to be human?

In the new movie by Gareth Edwards, machines called "simulants" can think and feel for themselves and even robots are capable of expressing emotion.

Half a century in the future, the United States is at war because: "Ten years ago today, the artificial intelligence created to protect us, detonated a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles," a clip from the movie says.

What's billed as a fight for human existence is being waged in Asia where John David Washington's character has been recruited to help the U.S. prevail.

"Sgt. Taylor, we're this close to winning the war, but the AI are developing a super weapon. Retrieve it and we win," the trailer teases.

Turns out the weapon is in the form of a 6-year-old girl!

"She looks like a little girl now, but she's growing," the trailer continues.

Growing ever smarter with telekinetic powers that are already impressive but it's her very human qualities that make "Alfie" so memorable.

"What's heaven?" she asks.

The unlikely relationship between "Alfie" and Sgt. Taylor is at the heart of the movie.

"The Creator" forces each of us to grapple with our own feelings about the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, as we marvel at the thrills and excitement that only the very best sci-fi movies can give us.

At a reported cost of $80 million, this movie does far more with less money than other pictures, which is interesting to us who cover Hollywood, but more importantly: "The Creator" is worth spending your money to see it. This is one of the best movies of the year, in theaters now from 20th Century Studios, owned by the same parent company as ABC 7.