Ex Machina, Exhilarating!!

Rating: 10/10 (8 August 2019)

Novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland has jumped behind the camera to direct his film debut Ex Machina, a sci fi thriller that follows a young computer programmer who spends a week with his eccentric boss after winning the company staff lottery. Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, an impressionable young coder, flies to a remote scientific man cave by helicopter to meet his reclusive overseer, Nathan played by Oscar Isaac. Nathan is a wizard in the tech world, known by many as a genius who has created a popular search engine called Blue Book. He has bought Caleb to his compound to perform a series of tests on an artificial intelligence system called Ava played by the beautiful Alicia Vikander. Ava is a robot. She understands interaction and speaks as fluently as any human. Just as Caleb begins to form an emotional bond with the robot, Nathan's behaviour becomes erratic and unpredictable due to his constant drinking. As the testing continues, a series of power shortages occur, allowing Ava to communicate with Caleb without her masters knowledge. The robots plan is unclear at first, but we soon learn that an escape is on the cards in which Ava has skilfully manipulated her new found friend to achieve. Ex Machina is a sci fi thriller unlike any other, Oscar Isaac providing an intriguing performance of flair and boldness that drives Garlands directorial debut to astounding heights.