Poor story, only reasonable otherwise

Rating: 3/10 (12 February 2017)

If I had realised this was by Alex Garland I would not have bothered watching. I remember reading his book the Beach years ago and thinking 'there's something not very nice about this'. At the time I wasn't sure what it was. But now having seen Ex Machina, I have the same feeling. That the story has been chosen simply to appeal to a large audience, in a rather manipulative, unthinking and unfeeling way.
I don't normally write bad reviews - of anything. Preferring to focus on the positive. But I so dislike this I felt I had to write something to put people off wasting their time, or assimilating some of this 'nastiness'.
In the case of Ex Machina I can just imagine Garland wondering what he would do for his next project, googling AI and quickly finding the AI Box Experiment. And rather than do the heart- and soul-searching work that would be necessary to produce anything original I imagine him quickly turning somebody else's idea into his next big proposal to present to the film studio.
So an unoriginal idea, presented in a fairly pedestrian way. Lots of images derived from a young person's view of 'sexuality', made me also wonder if this film is rather prejudiced against women?
It is reasonably paced but I found myself yawning a lot - not quite what I would expect from a good thriller.
Domhnall Gleeson is OK, does a pretty good job.