Thrilling, tense, scary and though provoking

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2015)

I love Artificial Intelligence films. "Blade Runner", "A.I" and "The Terminator" are among some of my favourite Sci-Fi movies so I was naturally looking forward to Ex Machina as soon as I saw the trailer. It didn't let me down.
I love the feel of this movie. Everything in Nathan's housing complex seems so clean, polished and state of the art yet the confined, remote setting makes you feel claustrophobic and helpless when things start going wrong. Despite all the advanced technology we are introduced to though, it doesn't feel too optimistic or far off into the long-term future, like a more civilised version of "Children of Men".
The film centers around four main characters which is just enough to keep things tightly focused but also keep you guessing everybody's motives throughout the running time. The performances by Oscar Isaac (who I am sure everyone is familiar with now) and Alicia Vikander are especially great with Alicia embodying the intelligent android "Ava" brilliantly.
The film says a lot about what it means to create an artificial life with personality in this quickly evolving world that we are living in. With mobile companions like "Siri" or "Cortana" now commonplace in our pockets, I feel this is a better time than ever to watch and discuss what these advancements will mean for the human race in ten to twenty years, and provides a good companion peace to "Her" released at the same time last year.
The last fifteen minutes are exciting, tense, slightly horrifying and will leave you with mixed emotions about each character and how they behaved. For me, it's already a top contender for film of 2015. Catch it on theaters or on Blu-Ray as soon as you can.