Ex Machina is a movie about a simp that gets duped by a fembot, gets his boss killed and unleashes her to, probably, exact a Species-esque vengeance upon the innocent humans of earth (a cool sequel idea for the makers). Sure, it is heart warming to watch her gaze at the nature of freedom with lost eyes and a wide four-year-old-that-just-found-his-boner smile until you realise she had no qualms with leaving her savior for death. I feel like this movie would better be reviewed after multiple viewings but maybe another more in-depth look can be on the horizon when I'm not bummed about no one hanging out with me on a Friday.
Ex Machina does what science fiction movies of this kind always do- cannonball into conversations about A.I., evolution, human emotions, sexuality, art and smart dead people. A quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer's infamous "I am become death the destroyer of worlds" post-dropping-of-the-Atomic-Bomb television speech can only be as for-shadowing as running a title card across the screen reading 'Caleb is going to do something really dumb in a minute'. Caleb being the name of the main character who, by the way, must have either been the victim of slight miscast or terrible writing. Perhaps both, really. I sit and ponder at how strange it is to have a seemingly head-on-shoulders character suddenly unwind into a mental breakdown in an awkward scene in which he slices open his forearm with a razor to try and see if he is human or not. You'd only think a pivotal scene like this would come with warning signs leading up to it but no- I guess Alex Garland, the director, was trying to catch us off guard (tres bien!). This scene also goes away as fast as it came in with barely anything to serve off it.
I will admit though that the movie does take a few turns I didn't expect. I forget how much we're used to the usual man-teams-up-with-reliable-robot motif swarming today's sci-fi scene. It's like we're 9 again daydreaming about how amazing it would be to fall in-love with a female robot made just for us. Something that knows us so well and is also intelligent as fuck. Something that can too easily become a someone then back to just a something. We all love to play god and fuck the the thing that we've created, no? This movie explores all that at an observing distance. Whether this distance was created as a way of hiding a facade of intellectualism or to truly make us step back and think is debate-able and an answer can only be formulated after a repeated viewing- which I've already stressed I was not in the mood for. Caleb becomes the subject of manipulation by an adorable Ava (the fembot) despite the efforts of the laid-back creator, Nathan, to warn him. Nathan is also written so badly you wonder why they didn't just kill him at the beginning instead of having him stick around for a good 90+ minutes with nothing to do but drink, fuck his asian servant, spout some cyber gibberish and drink some more. I mean, as soon as you see this guy you think 'this dude is totally going to die'. He is introduced as the nonchalant-genius-next-door-that-hit-it-big-but-still-says-dude-a-lot kajillionaire and is shown surfing a hubris of Shakespearean proportions- he must have known the movie was going to kill him off.
I will admit though that the movie does take a few turns I didn't expect. I forget how much we're used to the usual man-teams-up-with-reliable-robot motif swarming today's sci-fi scene. It's like we're 9 again daydreaming about how amazing it would be to fall in-love with a female robot made just for us. Something that knows us so well and is also intelligent as fuck. Something that can too easily become a someone then back to just a something. We all love to play god and fuck the the thing that we've created, no? This movie explores all that at an observing distance. Whether this distance was created as a way of hiding a facade of intellectualism or to truly make us step back and think is debate-able and an answer can only be formulated after a repeated viewing- which I've already stressed I was not in the mood for. Caleb becomes the subject of manipulation by an adorable Ava (the fembot) despite the efforts of the laid-back creator, Nathan, to warn him. Nathan is also written so badly you wonder why they didn't just kill him at the beginning instead of having him stick around for a good 90+ minutes with nothing to do but drink, fuck his asian servant, spout some cyber gibberish and drink some more. I mean, as soon as you see this guy you think 'this dude is totally going to die'. He is introduced as the nonchalant-genius-next-door-that-hit-it-big-but-still-says-dude-a-lot kajillionaire and is shown surfing a hubris of Shakespearean proportions- he must have known the movie was going to kill him off.

Ugh, I hate myself for saying this but I'm developing a disliking to people putting too much effort into their art. This movie definitely tries. From its Nolan-esque style to its slow-paced attempt at dread and Greek-like climax you can't help but want to give its architects the praise they deserve- but only if it weren't for the fact this movie fails to go into areas it could have boldly sunk balls-deep into. Dialogue is cheap and we've heard it all, particularly why I get paid almost nothing to talk to my friends about nihilism, but it's actually the expressions and things that aren't stated that say it all- more of the space between the 1s and 0s. We're starting to surpass verbal language but this movie is a reminder that we're still, very much, addicted to it. Until we have a science fiction visual that transcends the limitations of exposition and story-lines how will we truly understand what it is blur the line between humanity and digital-ism? Did Scott Pilgrim Vs The World do a better job as a science-fiction film? Just a thought for anyone thinking of making some sci-fi some day.