Godzilla (2014) and Rogue One (2016) director Gareth Edwards is back with a new and original science fiction film, his first non-franchise work since Monsters, his 2010 feature debut. The Creator showcases Edwards at his best – strong photography, innovative design – but also shows off his ongoing weaknesses – simplistic characters, underwhelming scripts, and a tendency to leave the strongest story ideas off the table.

Ten years after artificially intelligent robots detonated a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, former special forces soldier Joshua (John David Washington) is recruited to infiltrate a Southeast Asian laboratory and seize a new AI super-weapon. When the mission ends in failure, Joshua finds himself on the run through AI-friendly territory with the weapon in tow: a robot child named Alphie (Madeline Yuna Voyles).

To give due credit, The Creator is a muscular swing for the fences. Largely shot on location in multiple Asian countries, it combines innovative digital effects with tremendous design work. It is also something of a rarity, in that it tells an original science fiction story without relying on shared universes or pre-existing intellectual property. Audiences looking for an attractive near-future action film have lot here to please them, and honestly there is nothing wrong with that. It also handles a strong cast of actors. While the film lacks A-list star power, it excels with strong talent including Washington, Ken Watanabe (reuniting with Edwards after Godzilla), Gemma Chan, and Ralph Ineson. Of particular interest is Oscar-winner Allison Janney, still best known for her TV roles in The West Wing and Mom, playing against type as a hardened army colonel. It initially seems a jarring choice, but soon emerges as one of the film’s most interesting. Madeline Yuna Voyles is excellent as Alphie in a hugely promising debut.

It is in the writing that The Creator struggles. The screenplay, which is written by Edwards and Chris Weitz, aims for profundity but misses. It comes with an aura of sophistication but a texture of derivation; while not directly adapting anything, it tries to sneak past the audience adapting nearly everything. Put 12 assorted science fiction and Vietnam War films into a blender, and audiences would likely receive the same effect. It gestures vaguely in the direction of proper ideas – is a perfect simulation of life the same as the real thing, for example – but then shies away from actually having the debate it has proposed. And why precisely is the AI’s all-powerful weapon manufactured in the form of an eight-year-old girl? Any reasons provided feel weakly argued: it seems a case of aesthetic over logic.

In terms of addressing contemporary geopolitics, the film falls into exactly the same trap as James Cameron’s Avatar (2009): the USA are depicted as aggressive colonial invaders, while the blended civilisation of humans and robots in the so-named “New Asia” are blurred into an anonymous and actively colonialist “other”. The Creator takes place inside a generic, Orientalist Asia where the coasts are Vietnamese, the cities Japanese, and where rebellions brew from inside mountainous Buddhist temples. It is simultaneously nowhere and everywhere, which is a shame given the effort spent in going to real Southeast Asian locations during production.

Taken superficially, and The Creator is an engaging action film with tremendous visuals and a weak third act. Take in the more thoughtful manner that Edwards insinuates, and it all falls to pieces. Make of it what you will.