Ex Machina – review

A lonely nerdy guy gets invited to his bosses super secret  house/research facility in the middle of nowhere to so he can interact/test his latest creation, an artificially intelligent robot he keeps in the basement.

The movie is a dark and intelligent slow burn of a sci-fi movie which is essentially a simple story between the three leads, the nerd (Domhnall Gleeson), the boss (Oscar Isaac) and the robot (Alicia Vikander). With the twists and turns of the plot you suspect that any or all three maybe a robot.

Although Alicia Vikander gives a fantastic performance as the robot, for me the highlight was Oscar Isaacs. He really has proven himself to be one of the best actors working today. His work over the past few year demonstrating that he can easily hero and villain and everything in between.

His character is both very charismatic and very arrogant. He is obviously intelligent and as self aware as the robot. (however why doesn’t he add Asimovs laws to his robots)

 

The movie looks very beautiful and the cgi is seamless. Especially on a tiny budget of $15m.

This is Alex Garlands first time directing in addition to his usual script duties and he does a fine job. The film does an amazing job with building the tension (and claustrophobia) throughout.

Ex Machina obviously plays with the themes of what it is to be human. In addition to truth and perception. I have read a fair amount of criticism surround the gender politics involved in the movie. Why give AI a female body and make it a sexbot? Well I think that the creator (and potential creators in real life) would totally build a sexbot.

An intelligent, slow paced thriller, fantastically acted, but it raises more questions than it answers.

It also features this years top entry in the unexpected dance number in the middle of a movie.