Ex Machina
Simply put, Ex Machina is a very thought provoking look at the complex dynamic of human emotions when mixed with artificial intelligence.
The story begins when Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac).
Caleb soon realizes that he didn’t just win a random competition and was, in fact, handpicked by Nathan to spend a week with him to be the human component in a Turing Test to appraise the effectiveness of Nathan’s newest artificial intelligence experiment – Ava.
Ava(Alicia Vikander) is a drop dead gorgeous A.I. with an extremely sophisticated and cunning acumen who proves to be a lot more deceptive than either Caleb or Nathan envision. Caleb visits Ava each day for sessions in Nathan’s massive underground lab/home. While the question and answer sessions are taking place, Nathan keenly observes the interaction through monitors around the facility.
Director Alex Garland does a masterful job of creating tension and indelible moments throughout the film which leave the viewer constantly questioning right versus wrong, good versus evil, etc… In fact, the movie is so masterfully written, there is a good chance that the viewer will end up rooting for and against all of the characters somewhere during the movie’s timeline.
Make no mistake, Ava is the star of this film and her interaction with Caleb throughout their many sessions is intensely gripping and intriguing. Without ruining the storyline, I can just say that audiences will find this thriller to be very entertaining, captivating, and full of discussion points afterwards. A last point of note is that the music and score composed by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury is spot on and really sets the mood for all of the different sequences throughout.
A solid and entertaining 9 out of 10.
