Garland strikes again! A mighty fine directorial debut.

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2015)

The following review is taken from MY LetterboXD account (http://letterboxd.com/08lc3/):
The UK. Ah, what an annoying place for movie releases. We tend to get things a lot later than the US. Films like John Wick and Big Hero 6 haven't even been released yet!
Thankfully, every once in a while, we do get something of note before everyone else. I got the chance to see Ex Machina earlier today. I'll cut to the chase, it was pretty good. Great some would say.
It's a very original and interesting film based around the realism of artificial intelligence. A lot of the dialogue in the film is very interesting and thought provoking. It really is great to see a film that explores where we could go with technology.
Going into this, I didn't expect a whole lot but I knew of Alex Garland's strong involvement. This is his directorial debut and he also wrote it. He's an amazing writer in my opinion. He wrote 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go. All three have solid scripts full of originality. I knew then that this film would be very smart and rock solid. And, it was.
The film was full of innovative looks at the near future and all the components behind AI. It was the most fascinating dialogue I've heard in a while. That and Oscar Isaac were the best parts about it.
Along with the realistic and intelligent discussions of technology, the film's script was full of actual things people say. Isaac's character was very sarcastic in a normal sense. I haven't seen such normal responses in a long time. He was funny due to his reactions to what Gleeson would say.
The film's story progresses very well and certainly doesn't waste any time. I couldn't predict what was going to happen and it was definitely engaging. Due to its current limited release across the world, I don't want to say too much.
I think it was very enjoyable but somewhat tonally inconsistent. It sometimes felt like Black Mirror to give a comparison. I think the way it ended was fantastic. I am glad to see that films still have balls.
Garland is king and Isaac is God.
Catch it when you can, foreigners. It feels good to be one of the first citizen voices on a movie.