Theater Whore: Ex Machina

Ex Machina 7/10

There will be some spoilers. I got to check out the movie Ex Machina. This is a really good movie that has a lot of mindfuckery to it. It stars Domhnall Gleeson who was in Frank as Caleb. He is a computer programmer that wins a contest to meet with the CEO of the company he works for, Blue Book. Its like a bionic Google. So he gets placed on a helicopter and flies hours away and told he will be picked up one week later.

Caleb gets there and meets Nathan played by the incredible and underrated Oscar Isaac. He is a very straightforward guy and tells Caleb to get the awkwardness out of the way. Nathan introduces Caleb to his assistant Kyoko. She speaks no English and prepares meals and such. Nathan tells Caleb that he wants him to help test out some new AI that he is working on named Ava played by Alicia Vikander. He wants Caleb to talk to Ava and see how well she replies during human interaction. Nathan's entire home is recorded with cameras.

Nathan tells Caleb that he has used cell phone conversations from billions and billions of people and downloaded that into Ava. Caleb is like “That sounds illegal” and Nathan is like “Every company does it.” Caleb sits down with Ava every day and asks her questions. She begins to wonder about Caleb's life. During these tests the power continually shuts off. During one of these Ava tells Caleb that Nathan lies about everything and not to trust him. Before he can get more information the power comes back on.

Caleb starts to take a shining to and tells her that he wants to take her away. She knows that something is up and is upset that if she fails the test she will be shut off. Nathan later finds out that Kyoko is an android herself while Nathan is blackout drunk as well as seeing that there have been other AI created that went crazy after being trapped in the room.

Caleb, with one day left, tells Nathan that they should get drunk. Nathan tells him he'll pass and later shows Caleb footage of conversations with Ava he thought were secret as well as video of Caleb cutting himself during a moment when he thought he may have been a robot himself.

I won't spoil how this ends but it could have ended a bit sooner. This is a suspenseful movie and has some incredible acting from everyone involved. There are pretty much only four people in this and two of them are robots. This was the directorial debut of writer Alex Garland who wrote 28 Days Later and this as well. While this was a really good movie it left a few questions that I wish were answered during the last fifteen minutes or so instead of lingering shots. I still recommend checking this out if you were on the fence.

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