Instant Classic

Rating: 10/10 (28 April 2015)

AI movies have been done. Often in fact. But never ever quite so well.
This is about a Turing Test with a twist (see: "The Imitation Game" about Alan Turing, featuring the test).
In pure form, the artificial intelligence being tested, is behind a curtain or in a different room. The tester is tasked with determining whether a conversation was a machine or a human. The interface could be text or voice, but usually imagined as text. Here the tester knows that he's communicating with, and looking at, a walking talking AI. You've seen the trailers. Using CGI to turn the arms, legs, neck and torso of an actress into something transparent like a clear-faced mechanical watch is a nice touch, but it doesn't really advance the plot enough to justify the trouble and expense. But I'm sure it sells tickets and draws award nominations.
The tester is tasked with determining if the AI is indeed sentient. "How?" Designing the test is part of the assignment of course. In posters and trailers you already know that 'Ava' the AI has "a great rack." This is not just movie marketing, it's actually part of the experiment and plot. Movie marketing wise, it works of course.
Alex Garland's first movie as director, brings to my mind George Lucas' first work: THX-1138. A lot. If we are seeing parallel career tracks, hold on to your socks folks. His next project could well hit the upper nine figures at the box-office then it's on to Billion-dollar grosses for a few decades. This work deserves a box office in the early 9 figures, and I sincerely hope he makes it. If not, Hollywood will see the talent, but there's nothing like a blockbuster to get a green light on your next five projects. I really want to see his next five projects.
Elements of this film are pure buddy flick complete with a LOT of beer. These buddies happen to be boy-prodigy hacker-smart, having conversations that Aaron Sorkin characters would aspire to.
One guy is a zillionaire who wrote the foundation app for a Google-type search engine at 13, the other guy is one of his many thousands of employees, born in my hometown of Portland Oregon, who entered college already a highly accomplished coder. They are NOT "Big Bang Theory" geeks. These are very-bright sensitive-new-age-guys who've done some therapy and it's stuck.
Forget the hot nekkid chicks and how well they fit the plot. This movie at its core is an exquisite dialog between very fine minds about the nature of sentience. The hot nekkid chicks are good marketing of course. And they fit the plot. Oh, I've said both points twice now.
Worthy of mention is that the zillionaire's mountain retreat is an architectural jewel. It is truly stunning, as are the mountain / waterfall / glacier exteriors used in a hiking scene. (Spoiler alert!) The house is not blown up in the final scene, suggesting that it is a real house somewhere rented for the project. I would like to think that it really does exist somewhere, even without the secret lab levels.
Production budget not released, but I'm guessing well under $25M even if they built the house as a set instead of renting an interesting home. For comps, the production budget for "Her" - another AI movie - was published as $23M including salaries for two established A-listers. Low, but you don't miss it on screen, there or here.
The zillionaire character has a great art collection at his mountain retreat home, including a huge Jackson Pollock painting worth hundreds of millions. It's worthy of mention, because there is dialog about the painting that connects nicely to the plot. And reinforces that he is VERY rich.
I recommend seeing it in first-run with a large popcorn and drink, then buy the BluRay. Most of the plot is fine for DVD, but the exterior scenes would be very very nice in hi-def.