Impressive on many levels. Definitely worth seeing.

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2017)

I will start with what I didn't like about the movie, because there was very little not to like. Nathan seemed a little too normal, or at the very least too social. This is a guy who has cut himself off from the rest of the world in order to work in secret, and that sort of lifestyle suggests that he doesn't have many friends. Yet he seems very socially capable in the way he interacts with Caleb. Aside from that small disconnect, there was nothing that I found to dislike about the movie.
This is easily the best examination of AI that I've seen in any movie, which I liked very much. Not only did it provide insight to societal issues regarding progress and technology, it also delved into the question of what it means to be human. Lots of times AI is used as the premise for sci-fi action movies like I Robot, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and The Matrix, but in all three the concept is primarily used to generate action sequences in which man faces off against machine. In Ex Machina the concept is handled in a way that feels much more realistic and puts it in context of what issues may arise when humans interact with artificial intelligence.
Ava does not act like a real person, being much more stiff. In essence, she fails the Turing test by my observation. I did believe that she could pass for human in the everyday world, but she lacked personality. The creation of her brain from a search engine seems to have been able to imitate the sporadic and inventive nature of a human brain, but she lacks true emotion and, as is revealed at the end, functions to achieve a specific goal much like a real computer.
Fortunately, Ava was not the only interesting character. Caleb is an everyman character, but Domhnall Gleeson's performance gives the sense that Caleb is a distinct person with distinct experiences. Despite having a limited knowledge of what he is being thrown into, he is still an active character. Nathan may not have been the most memorable or menacing villain, but he was still a very interesting person to have as the antagonist. It was never clear just how much of the truth he was revealing to Caleb or what his true intentions were. At the same time, he was relatively normal and friendly, not coming off as evil or even ill-willed. I appreciated this, because it's a lot closer to what "villains" are like in real life as opposed to the black-caped "bad guys" that come up so often in movies.
The script was very well constructed in the way that it dealt with themes and exposing Nathan's web of lies throughout. Also, the many conversations between Nathan and Caleb were very good. I was interested in the two of them and their relationship even more than I was in Caleb and Ava's relationship. It was also paced well enough that I was always interested to see what would happen next. The special effects, though not flashy or spectacular, were enough to do the job and be deserving of the Oscar they were awarded. This accomplishment is made more impressive by the small budget of $15 million. Similarly, the acting, directing, cinematography, and editing did not immediately stand out, but all were impressive and helped the movie become what it needed to be. Overall Rating: 8.2/10.