Not As Smart As It Thinks It Is

Rating: 7/10 (17 May 2015)

Caleb a computer programmer is invited by Nathan , a billionaire technology tycoon is invited to stay with him and through conversation tells Caleb he has invented something that will revolutionise the world as we know it . Intrigued by what might be the greatest scientific invention ever Caleb promises to keep Nathan's secret and he is introduced to Ava an android
This is the directorial debut of Alex Garland who started off as a novelist with his screen writing debut being the screen adaptation of his own novel THE BEACH . Very quickly he became established as a horror/science fiction writer with the screenplays of 28 DAYS LATER , SUNSHINE and DREDD so it's only natural that if he was going to progress to directing then the sci-fi genre would be an obvious choice
That said I've never felt Garland was a great screenwriter and his work is highly derivative . 28DL is an obvious steal of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS in its plotting and SUNSHINE contains ever horror and science fiction cliché you can think of . EX MACHINA feels as if it's borrowing a bit from Kubrick and Scott . It's a curiously uninvolving film where the characters feel completely detached from the audience . Effectively there's only three speaking parts where characters stand in minimalist sets talking , talking and ... well talking . When anything of note happens plot turn wise you're probably able to second guess them which makes for a fairly predictable story
I notice that so far EX MACHINA has an average user rating of 8.1 . Now I certainly don't agree with such a high rating but I can certainly understand why people might be giving it a higher mark that it deserves . It's a co-production between Universal Studios and Britain's Film4 but its obvious roots are outside the Hollywood studio system . It's a rather talkative introspective sci-fi drama and you can understand people wanting to reward this simply because it's not some noisy over-edited spectacular but even so you're left thinking the film might have been better than it actually is