Ex Machina or rather Deus Ex Machina, God from the machine is the phrase from which the title of Alex Garland’s new film is coined. It concerns A.I. or artificial intelligence, a holy grail along with perpetual motion, immortality and time travel. The machine is built by humankind but God is inferred.
Certain mysteries are outside the grasp of human understanding. All our technology, math and science are no guarantee of the survival of the species, especially when we play with the forces of creation. The singularity of exactly when our machines will become sentient and a life force capable of their own procreation cannot be mapped anymore than the weather.
The singularity will arrive precipitously on its own prerogative. That is what happens to the chagrin of Nathan Bateman (played by Oscar Isaac) the would be Promethean demi-god and creator of Ava (Alicia Vikander), the central artificial humanoid in the story.
The themes covered by this excellent work of science fiction have been investigated before but Ex Machina does it with freshness and clarity. The film ends in a conflagration of clarity when the genie escapes the bottle and an evil opens Pandora’s box.
The pacing of the film is even and the cinematic approach is refreshing. The effects serve the story unlike so many current science fiction films where the effects are heavy and the story if any gets left to function like the tail wagging the dog. Ex Machina was made for lunch money at only 20 million, but the shot volume and production values are impressive and at no time are we distracted by budget constraints seeping out on screen.
The film has a quiet grace while it examines horrific, cataclysmic ideas of playing god, the birth of a new species and human extinction by technological suicide. I liked the subtext of a three way chess match between Ava, Nathan and Caleb Smith played by (Domhnall Gleeson) where one discovered check after another reverses the plot several times.
This may be as much of a horror film as it is a science fiction film. It shares the same story DNA as, Alien, Solaris, Forbidden Planet and The Thing from Another World where an invisible and dangerously clever monster stalks among us. I would say that Ex Machina will hold up and stand the test of time. Is it fizz or is it fizzle? This is definitely fizz.
Ira Harmon | film reviewer for Pop Machine
Fizz or fizzle? This was a tough one for me. The photography and special effects were stunning and the acting was believable. The story unfolded at a decent pace with bread crumbs of plot leading us to the inevitable conclusion. The humans acted predictably human, and the machine took advantage of that weakness. But like drinking day-old soda pop, there was little fizz left at the end of the flick which left me wondering why I was drinking it at all?
Great comment! If you haven’t checked out the film titled “The Machine” yet you should. It was made a year earlier 2013 (released in 2014) and is also a British Sci-Fi flick about the exact same subject of A.I. With nearly the same budget.
The central android chick has the same name of Ava too.
The Machine is a 2013 British science fiction thriller film directed and written by Caradog W. James. It’s almost like somebody said here’s 20 million a piece and here’s the same idea, go off and make your movies.
Who was it that said “you can’t trust a big Bot and a smile”?
REALLY!!!??? Still shaking my head! WOW!
Visually this movie is stunning but half way through i’m more than bored.
🙁
What’s funny is in order to post this comment – I had to click a box to prove i’m not a robot. 🙂
Will watch until the end and hope it gets better.