Review: Ex Machina

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★★

Last weekend, I praised a film for being well made within the confines of its genre. Today, I’d like to tell you that using genre to define a film should probably be thrown out. I hope that doesn’t make me hypocritical, although it probably does. “Ex Machina” is a science fiction film that is brilliant and engaging. It’s one of the finest science fiction films in years, well crafted and strikingly captured. But why must it be singled out solely as a science fiction film? How would it be described if we were to strip away its genre and forget the fact it has anything to do with robots and artificial intelligence? In this case, it would be the same thing. It’s an intelligent and unforgettable all around film, one of the finest we’ve seen so far this year.

Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, an employee at a powerful tech company who wins the opportunity to visit the home of the company’s reclusive owner, Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Once he arrives, Nathan tells Caleb he’s been brought to test a new project he’s been working on, an advanced piece of artificial intelligence. The lifelike robot goes by the name Ava (Alicia Vikander). She’s so life like, and Caleb can’t keep her out of his mind. Perhaps Nathan has programmed her to be too much like a human, which may or may not be a good thing.

Writer/director Alex Garland (screenwriter of “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine”) sets an immediate unsettling tone the moment the film begins, and then never puts you at ease. He’s never allows you to feel comfortable with any of these characters as you continually question what’s really going on with all of them. And that’s just the tone of the film. The real meat of this film comes from all the questions it raises about artificial intelligence.

It’s not like we’ve never seen a film about artificial intelligence before. There seems to be at least one every year. What makes this one so special? I think it starts with the scale of the picture being so small. We only have three people we’re concerned with: creator, creation and tester. Rather than showing us a world with AI already in it, Garland shows us the world right before it and asks us the big “what if?” question. The conversations between Caleb and Nathan are filled with the right questions we’d want to know about an artificially intelligent being. Nathan even considers himself a god having created Ava. So are these the questions we’d ask our own creator given the opportunity?

The technology featured in the film, outside of the artificially intelligent robot, doesn’t seem too far advanced from the technology we carry around with us today. So the future Garland depicts probably isn’t too far removed from the present day. They never tell us what year it is, and the company Nathan owns sounds very familiar to companies currently operating today. And with the amount of secrecy in which these companies operate, would it be any real shock to you to learn an advanced AI robot would be hitting the market in time for Christmas? Garland uses this element to give us pause about the ethical and moral ideas of creating an artificially intelligent object. And the way that Nathan was able to create this robot brings up a whole host of privacy issues, which wouldn’t be too far from what we’re dealing with today.

The impeccable writing leads to strong and dynamic performances. Glesson is masterful, and his character grows throughout the entire film from being confused and intimidated to being more skeptical and cautious. Vikander is equally mesmerizing as the artificially intelligent being. She’s programmed, so growth isn’t an option in this performance. In the end, she’s exactly who she started out in the beginning. Vikander plays the role so well that we’re still surprised by her character at every turn. Overall, the film belongs to Isaac who is rapidly ascending the Hollywood ladder of superstardom. He has a commanding presence on screen that his co-stars can’t match, only because he’s so much fun to watch. And who knew he could tear up a dance floor? Thanks to one of the zaniest scenes of the year, we all know he can now.

“Ex Machina” is a sensational cinematic achievement. Forget the genre. That would be limiting the movie and lumping it into one category for the sake of comparison. This film is highly entertaining and engaging, beautifully photographed and expertly paced. It’s surprising to think that this is a director’s first feature. It’s an outstanding first effort, a masterful sci-fi thriller and, above all, and exceptional piece of filmmaking.