AI-verse

Rating: 7/10 (29 January 2015)

Garland has put together a solid sci-fi movie, which is really what would be expected of such a talented screenwriter. Having taken over the directing helm for the first time, Ex Machina looks smooth and fascinating, suave to the brink and feels quite enthralling overall. But to me, it does not aim quite high enough with the ending, which is a shame, because the journey there was good fun.
The plot is that Caleb, an employee at some megatech Google-y company, wins a lottery to go spend a blissful seven days at the estate of the eccentric owner of the joint, Nathan. He finds him at a luscious house, gorgeously conceived but fairly sterile overall, where he is revealed the real purpose for his trip: do a Turing test on an advanced AI machine. Things get complicated along the way, as the movie explores motives, social themes and overarching concerns of where technology will lead us.
I really admired the fairly minimalistic narrative approach but very realistic scientific take on the role the latter will have in this near future. While human-level AI is still some way down the road, especially in such a compact form as a human-like body, it probably is going to happen. The impact and privacy implications of social data mining are highlighted at several points during the story and play a central role in the whole testing environment, a theme that has become more prevalent than ever in the continued development of our virtual selves. And the story pushes through these things seamlessly, humorously and poignantly, which is all that could have been asked for.
What disturbed me a little was that Nathan's character is underdeveloped and behaves in an erratic fashion that is quite clichÃ©d. Additionally, the implication of the movie is that a man alone could take up most of the research in creating such an advanced AI. This is not likely at all. And ultimately, the final twenty minutes or so advance fairly predictably towards a stale ending.
So a good overall experience, that just falls short of being truly memorable, despite very impressive performances by all three leads: Isaac, Gleeson, Vikander. It felt so close to a ridiculously cool ending, that it frustrates me a bit that I didn't get it.
SPOILERS
Because what I'd have loved is the conclusion being that the AIs had taken over the house before the movie began, including Nathan who had been turned into an AI replacement of his former self, and they would have brought Caleb to check whether they can pass the Turing test and venture into the world. Would have been a really cool and perhaps a bit silly ending, but my mind wandered in this direction as the actual one was unfolding.