Clearly delineated and riveting...ideas, personalities, and the future, now

Rating: 8/10 (9 June 2015)

Ex Machina (2015)
The idea here is brilliant, and the three actors that matter are spot on excellent. That includes the obviously constrained performance by the robot/human/thing, the character referred to by the title.
And it's the ideas that float along that mix with the three personalities beautifully. They have purposely made the two male leads idiosyncratic. First is the youngster, Caleb, a single thirty-ish male who is a nerd and a bit naive, but also very smart and computer savvy. He is the one visiting the isolated research facility in what is supposedly a Turing test. (The facility seems to have one researcher which is just absurd, but that's to make the movie dramatic.) Caleb is played with wonderful quirky restraint by Domhnall Gleeson.
Then comes Nathan, the loner eccentric genius behind the new robots with amazing artificial intelligence. His cool dude persona is probably overplayed but it makes him exceptionally normal and human. And he's filled out with unusual perception by Oscar Isaac.
Maybe most notable here is the director and writer, Alex Garland. Because it is the writing the strikes you over and over as both clever and provocative. It digs into the issue of what it means to be human—or what it means to be a robot—with wonderful perception. And this is his directorial debut—his first movie!
And it's not enough. Yeah, as good as this movie is, you'll likely leave feeling a little short changed. As far as it goes—and it's really a great movie and you should see it—it's no "Citizen Kane." And by that I mean, here's a brilliant first movie just like Welles's, and yet Garland decides to go for a linear, step by step approach. It's compelling in its own way, but it's oddly simple by the end.
Maybe this is partly because I've read and thought about these ideas a lot. If you are new to A.I. you might find it more revelatory. I hope so! Certainly the Kubrick/Spielberg "A.I." and the recent "Her" deserve a viewing to fill in some obvious holes. In fact, once you start looking you'll see this is a whole new genre, and an incredible one, including everything from "Moon" to "Frank." Go for it.
And start here, for sure. Great acting, interesting (though highly unrealistic) sets and setting, and a steady flow of ideas as it goes.