Ex Machina - Review Thread

*Written back in May

It’s always a little nerve-wracking when a film industry professional turns the focus to directing for the first time. Sometimes, this can result in the emergence of a bold new talent, such as Ben Affleck’s recent success as the man behind Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo. Other times however, the results are a total failure and embarrassment. Last year for example, top-notch cinematographer Wally Pfister made his directorial debut with the horrendous Transcendence. Ex Machina is the latest example of a prominent figure in film making their directorial debut, and coincidentally is also a high concept science-fiction film pertaining to A.I. This time, the freshman director is Alex Garland, a screenwriter best known for the Danny Boyle helmed sci-fi films 28 Days Later and Sunshine. Of all the professions that transition to a director, the screenwriter to director has always struck me as the most logical path. The technical aspects differ, but the overall goal of storytelling is the same, a fact which gave me hope Garland would be able to make a smooth transition from scribe to filmmaker.

Ex Machina is set in what I presume is a not too distant future and follows Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer for search engine company Bluebook. As the film starts, Caleb receives an email that he has one a company contest to spend one week at the estate of CEO Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon arriving, Nathan informs Caleb that his estate is not merely a home, but a research facility for top secret and cutting edge technology that Nathan would like Caleb to test. This turns out to be the development of an A.I. known as Ava (Alicia Vikander), whom Caleb is to gauge the humanity of. However through his interactions with both Ava and Nathan, Caleb begins to suspect there is something more going on.

One of the problems with the aforementioned Transcendence was a first time director working with a $100 million budget, a celebrity packed cast, multiple sets, and lots of visual effects. Ex Machina is much more streamlined, with only one detailed location and a few core characters. Almost all of the film is set in Nathan’s home/research center, which allows Garland to flex his directorial muscles in a singular and specific environment. He certainly shows promise as a director. The art direction is very strong. One feels quite acquainted with Nathan’s home by the end of the film and the designs for the high-tech machinery is very cool as well. The film is also shot nicely and features a subtle yet haunting score. Garland also builds tension and mystery quite well before everything unravels in a rather unsettling climax. There’s also a scene about two thirds of the way in where Caleb makes certain revelations and said scene is surprisingly creepy.

Essentially, Ex Machina boils down to a power struggle defined by the machinations of the three leads. Domhnall Gleeson is fine as the naïve audience surrogate, though he’s also inherently the least interesting of the three. Alicia Vikander is very good as the A.I. Ava. She captures a machine-like quality well and there are subtleties to her performance which really shine. I was a little less impressed however by the character herself. Ava seems like a fairly standard movie robot to me, and I also didn’t quite buy her as this radical leap in artificial intelligence the film keeps making her out to be. Still, Vikander does shine in the part. However the real treat is Oscar Isaac, who continues to proof himself one of the best up and comers today. His portrayal of Nathan has a casual “bro” aura, but there is an underlying sense of power and menace he carries throughout. Isaac dominates every scene he’s in and while I wouldn’t say this matches the complexity he showed in something like Inside Llewyn Davis, it’s a really fun performance all the same.

Where the film shines is in the dynamics between the characters. I was engaged in that aspect of the story and ultimately satisfied with how it ended. Where I was disappointed in Ex Machina was thematically. While the film seems to be interested in exploring ideas of artificial intelligence and technology, I don’t think it really brought anything new to the table. It’s depictions of an A.I. possessing some levels of humanity are really old hat in science-fiction. There are some conversations between Nathan and Caleb regarding ideas of technology and science, but they mostly amount to window dressing. Where the film seems most interested intellectually is in the depicting sexual relationships between man and machine. That’s an interesting line of thought, but that ground was covered a lot more thoroughly and with greater complexity in Spike Jonze’s Her. Here, that content is more another surface element to play with in the character dynamics.

This is a very strong debut for Alex Garland. Comparable to David Mamet, Shane Black, or Charlie Kaufman, Garland has managed to transition into directing while maintaining the original voice developed in his scripts and I’m curious to see what he’ll do next. As for Ex Machina itself? It’s certainly a well-made film with some memorable scenes and performances, but it’s also not one I got too much out of. I can’t help but feel I’ve seen a lot of this stuff before. The major themes of when artificial creation becomes sentient, the lines of humanity, and the intentions of machines are pretty standard in science-fiction and the execution doesn’t do much to distance Ex Machina from the pact. Still, I would recommend the film. It’s a nice change of pace from the blockbuster season and certainly an enjoyable watch in the moment.

B

Yeah, I saw this. I liked it.

Good movie