Boorish antagonist and lack of suspense sinks newbie writer/director's sci-fi indie "thriller"

Rating: 2/10 (17 May 2015)

"Ex Machina" is by newbie writer/director Alex Garland. I refuse to get involved in evaluating Mr. Garland's talents as a director but may I jump in and offer an opinion as to his talents as a writer? Unfortunately, you might already guess that my opinion as to Mr. Garland's talent as a screenwriter, is not very high.
The problem with "Ex Machina" plain and simple, is that it lacks suspense. The protagonist is one Caleb, a computer programmer who works for "Bluebook," the world's popular search engine which presumably has replaced Google in the future. Caleb is invited by Nathan, the firm's CEO, to his secluded, "hi-tech" mountain retreat where he is asked to perform a "Turing test," on Nathan's sexy (CGI altered) android, Ava. The test involves determining whether the android's "artificial intelligence" is so advanced, that Caleb is unable to distinguish human from non-human responses.
You would think that Oscar Isaac who plays Nathan would be some kind of cool, Steve Jobs character with a touch of Machiavelli. But unfortunately Issac plays Nathan as a bully without a trace of subtlety. Is it Garland's lack of talent as a screenwriter or Issac's own boorish performance that brands Isaac as one of the worst actors of the year?
You'll probably guess that the one-note Nathan plans to wipe Ava's memory clean and Caleb will try to help escape from the sealed-in compound. Caleb also discovers that Nathan's personal assistant, Kyoto, is also an android and he also has her "confined to base."
At a certain point, Nathan learns of his collusion with Ava and warns Caleb that her plans to "spring the joint" will not involve him. But somehow Caleb anticipates Nathan's uncovering of their plot and disables the compound's security system. Part of the climax is predictable: Nathan further shows off his bad guy credentials by killing Kyoto and ripping Ava's arm off, in an attempt to kill her. But of course the robot is too smart for the bully and stabs him to death.
The only twist is that Nathan was right: Ava somehow escapes the retreat and leaves poor schnook Caleb, to die, locked inside Nathan's "campus."
As Porky Pig would say, "That's it, folks!" If your thing is one dimensional villains, then "Ex Machina" is for you. Even the twist of a sexy but unfeeling android, who leaves an undeserved protagonist to "twist in the wind," is hardly much of a "deus ex machina," to get excited about!