This film was deep, thought provoking and tense.

Rating: 9/10 (8 June 2015)

Ex Machina is a psychological thriller about a man who is sent to an isolated building in order to test an artificial intelligence and prove that it is self aware. This is an incredibly small, yet powerful film. There are three main characters (the man, the creator, and the A.I.) and something like two side characters (a pilot that drops off the protagonist, and an assistant that doesn't speak). All of the main characters are so well written and developed. They feel so real, deep and interesting. The pacing is very slow and deliberately so. The dialogue is very specific and concise, so there were many segments of silence used to allow the audience to think about what is being said. The film is aware of the audience and gives them time to think. While many artistic and intellectual films don't care if the audience isn't aware of whatever metaphors the film makers had in mind, this film took some time to explain and introduce metaphors and left it to the audience the find out why the metaphor is relevant. I left this film feeling smarter, like a learned something that I wanted to learn more about. The film asked deep questions and gave a couple little insights to guide the audience to what might be an answer. I was constantly interacting with a non-interactive medium. The script was so smart and aware of what kind of movie it was one could say the film is self aware. There are parts in this movie that tackled ideas that are typically only seen in fan discussions and theories. Not only that but it was tense and well acted, leaving me blind to what was going to happen next. I was blown away by this film and while the ending was not as strong as the rest of the film, I still have to recommend seeing the film.
On a side note, there is some full female nudity in this film. I occasionally read a couple of content guides to prepare for rated R films. The content guides for this film are quite wrong in my opinion. Yes, there was some full female nudity, but none of it is erotic, and it is in very small scenes. There was even a mention of why it is necessary. If you are sensitive to nudity in film, do not worry about this film. Some scenes might drag longer than you want (yet still brief), but it is very tastefully done.