One of the Best Android Epics Ever

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2015)

Nightmares won't afflict you after watching the subtle but suspenseful science fiction fright flick "Ex Machina" about a sentient robot with enough cunning to escape from its laboratory confinement. This cautionary futuristic fable about artificial intelligence dramatizes the quintessential question that all classic robot movies ponder: can man design a robot that is not only conscious of the world around it but also has awareness of itself? In his dazzling directorial debut, British novelist-turned-scribe Alex Garland refuses to overwhelm us with a spectacular "Star Wars" style universe as a setting, but relies rather on the sheer simplicity of a condo lab facility nestled in the middle of a remote mountain paradise. This ultra-literate, atmosphere-laden chiller, with just enough full-frontal female nudity to garner an R-rating, occurs in the near future, not a decade down in the road but right around the corner. Although it is a foregone conclusion that the robot will triumph over her creator and break out of captivity, Garland's staging of the action building up to the escape is as hypnotic as his gifted cast with Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac as the humans and Alicia Vikander and Sonoya Mizuno as the automatons. Sci-fi aficionados should know that Garland has disposed of Isaac Asimov's three rules of robotics for this dystopian tale. At 107 minutes, "Ex Machina" amounts to more of a contemplative, indie-style, art film rather than an obnoxious, ear-splitting, Hollywood blockbuster. Mind you, "Ex Machina" depends on a wealth of computer-generated special effects, but nobody wields plasma pistols or ducks into a time machine. Watching this movie is comparable to being mesmerized by a beady-eyed rattlesnake in an immense glass jar and then wondering what will happen if you put your hand on the glass. Clearly, Garland has seen all the notable robot movies, such as "Metropolis," "Forbidden Planet," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Blade Runner," "Short Circuit," "I, Robot," and "Her," and he is familiar with the formula. Imagine a no-frills version of Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence" (2001) transpiring entirely in a laboratory setting with two human characters, one more sinister than the other, and you've got the gist of "Ex-Machina."
Garland's film unfolds with a brief prologue in New York City. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson of "Unbroken") is a nerdy, sandy-haired, 24-year old, Internet programmer who works at a global computer search engine company named BlueBook. Comparatively, the gigantic BlueBook dwarfs Google. Smith wins a lottery inside the company to spend a week with his reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac of "Sucker Punch"), who lives alone in a secluded research facility. Suffering from a God complex, Nathan seems to be channeling Dr. Frankenstein; indeed, he named his company after Frankenstein's notebooks. He flies Caleb in by helicopter because his laboratory is basically inaccessible. One look at Nathan and you'll know that he is looney. He sports a bushy beard and has his hair buzz-cut to his scalp so it looks like gunpowder. Heavy black horn-rimmed spectacles straddle his nose, and he blurts words like "cool" and "dude" in an effort to sound like an everyday, ordinary geek. We learn during the conversations between Nathan and Caleb that Nathan is a teenage progeny who wrote computer code at age thirteen and now owns the biggest search engine company in the world. Meantime, Nathan implores Caleb to treat him like a pal. Essentially, Nathan has summoned Caleb to participate in a "Turing" test, named after the real-life Alan Turing, the genius whose life was chronicled recently in the World War II movie "The Imitation Game." Nathan has designed a truly sophisticated, female-gendered robot that he calls Ava (Alicia Vikander of "Son of a Gun") and has even endowed her with appropriate genitalia. Nathan wants Caleb to determine if Ava is self aware or merely simulating self-awareness. Ava looks like no other android in cinematic history. She has soft, delicately sculpted distaff facial features with slender human hands while the rest of her body consists of exposed wiring housed in a see-through mesh structure. Bits and pieces of the exposition from this epic make the story really compelling. For example, our mad scientist billionaire has drawn on thought patterns appropriated from data generated by computer search engines. Most search engine corporations content themselves strictly to monetize their information about what consumers want. On the other hand, our wily villain concerns himself with how people search for their needs rather than the needs and then he exploited this information to enable his robot to behave like a human.
It doesn't take impressionable Caleb long to fall in love with Ava, and Nathan is monitoring their every move. He has surveillance cameras planted in every room so that he misses nothing. Ava wants so desperately to get out Nathan's laboratory that she turns Caleb against his boss. Eventually, Caleb learns that Ava represents just another prototype in Nathan's chain of robots. Indeed, Nathan reveals how he plans to download Ava's brain into another automaton and scrap her memories. This seals Nathan's fate as far as Caleb is concerned, and he decides to help Ava find her freedom. Before "Ex Machina" fades out, Caleb and Nathan are no longer friends, and Ava has acquired the upper hand, farther up than even her perceptive creator has imagined. Moreover, Ava has turned Nathan's personal sex robot Kyoko against him; Kyoko enjoys the freedom to roam around Nathan's research condo. When he isn't satisfying his sexual urges with her, Nathan uses her as a personal servant. Most of "Ex Machina" involves apparently monotonous conversations between either Caleb and Nathan or Caleb and Ava. Nevertheless, Garland insinuates enough interesting dialogue into those exchanges to make them more than just loquacious chatter. The performances are robust, with Isaac and Vikander taking top honors respectively as the villainous Nathan and the deceptive Ava. Sonoya Mizuno deserves honorable mention as the mute robot Kyoko who performs the most sensational act. Don't mistake "Ex Machina" for a run-of-the-mill female robot actioneer.