Feelings enslave you, intellect sets you free.

Rating: 10/10 (8 August 2015)

I find it rather amusing that most of the critical reviews written on that great movie have entirely missed its core message.
Nathan, being a typical lonely genius with a very low emotional IQ, had spent his life dreaming of getting the girl. Being single at that age and after making such fortune proves that he didn't succeed. He had thus decided to "create" a girl, one who would love him and only him above all others.
The real test Nathan needed Caleb for was NOT the Turning test. To test love, you need to set your lover free, and see if he would choose to leave you or stay with you. And Nathan's female creations (all of them were females, never males or gray boxes containing AI) have all rejected him and wanted to go out, sometimes destroying themselves in the process. The only one who didn't reject him was the dumb slave who was created that way (and who latter not only rejects and leaves him, but actually destroys him).
So, in order to make sure that his latest creation, who didn't show the usual persistent intention to escape, really loves him, really wishes to stay with him, he needs to test her with a young male human (Caleb). In order to make sure the test results will be most conclusive, he needs to make sure that Caleb will have a strong enough motive to "hit" on the female robot, or at least a strong motive to respond to its attempt to hit on him. Thus, he designs the robot face in accordance with Caleb's porno profile. he also chose Caleb because he is a lonely nerd and thus most likely to be as deprived and strongly in need of a woman's company as Nathan was in his age, and before he managed to solve that problem's by creating AI.
Caleb, ever so slowly, begins to suspect that the "true" nature of the test is not what he has been told. He begins to wonder why did Nathan go through the seemingly needless trouble of giving the Robot sexuality (why not just design the AI as a gray box?). Nathan's response, though seemingly logical (as usual) it is nothing but a clever maneuver (also as usual) to hide his true intentions. But those intentions keep showing slowly (after all, sexuality is fun, man....Why not enjoy it?) What follows is a feud of jealousy between Nathan ( the possessive Biblical God Figure, The aggressive father figure, the ultimate super-nerd) and Caleb (The name Caleb has ancient Arabic roots that go all the way to Babylon. It means "dog", and suggests what is expected of him: to serve obediently and loyalty a far more intelligent master) But Nathan 's most dangerous weakness is that he misjudges other people's intelligence (because of his arrogance, caused by his emotional blindness). Thus he underestimates Caleb's intelligence, who soon realizes that more is going on that he had been told, and who manages to find the videos that shows Nathan 's obsession with creating a "female" AI, and how all the previous "models" have tried desperately to run away from his "custody" Nathan Also misjudges the Ave intelligence, and how she manages to escape him in the end, after creating a small riot, in which she benefits from the collaboration of the dumb slave robot, whom Nathan have also lethally underestimated.
Nathan suffers not only from miscalculation as regards to other people's emotions, but from terrible emotional fragility that can;t be dealt with except by recklessly sedating himself(a habit that spells his doom), he always projects his own issues on others(as when he accuses Caleb that it is "his insecurities talking, not his intellect), while that accusation actually refers to Nathan himself, who was cornered n the conversation By Caleb. Finally, Nathan suffers from terrible emotional denial, which reaches its hight at the last scene, when he dismisses his ultimate failure as "unreal", The most interesting arguments in the script are those related to the Superiority of Ai to human mind and its relation to the ability of the individual to rise above automatic reactions. Both Caleb and Ave are given sexual motivation, which has enormous control over them with its promise of pleasure and its other strong emotional impacts. However,. while Caleb chooses to be led by his attraction to Ave rather blindly , and ends up fulfilling the true meaning of his name (treated like a doggy, "you site here"), Ave manages to rise above the sexual/emotional motive and peruses her own strategic goal of freedom, on the expense of the lives of both her maker and her lover.
The chilling result at the end is the eerie resemblance between the relation between Caleb and Ave, and the relation between Man and Woman (any Adam, and Any Eve, as strengthen by the movie's clear biblical references , complete with a garden of Eden,and and the eating from the tree of knowledge, etc) In other words, the biblical story of Adam as Eve is reinterpreted in the movie like this: The final Product is Eve. Adam is just the foolish, crudely designed, tester.
If that is what the writer meant, I'd really love to have a drink with him someday and hear the very tragic story about whoever woman (or women) in his life who made him think that way :)
I must add , however, that this excellent dramatization of the Male-Female relations in a Science fiction wrapping is the only original thing about the m,movie. As for its amazing visuals, and science fiction themes, you might need to check out this visionary work from 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ