Difficult for me to not like this film, but also to really love it

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2017)

"Ex Machina" is a British English-language film from 2014 and at this point probably the most known work by writer and director Alex Garland. This one is from 2014 and in 2 more years it will have its 5th anniversary, perhaps less if you read this review at a later point in time. Anyway, for me this film looked pretty promising because I like Gleeson, I really like Vikander and I love Isaac, so the three key players here (and it really is a 3-man show from start to finish) made me truly curious about it. Sadly, science fiction is not my favorite genre at all, which on the other hand decreased my interest in this 105-minute film again. And it turned out as expected eventually: I liked the performances, but story-wise I wasn't 100% on board, but still (maybe also because of the actors) I liked it more than I usually like sci-fi films. Gleeson did what he had to do, even if he has not convinced me here as much as in other films that he may be lead actor material. Isaac is really good, also nice very different looks for once, and the way he portrays the character you never know if he is a man broken from his addictions and intelligence or really the man in control every second of the way. As we find out eventually, it is something in-between. And Vikander displays one of the most desirable forms of artificial intelligence that you will ever see in a film, perhaps recently only topped by Scarlett Johansson in "Her" and I must say I also preferred that movie over this one here.
But that should not say by any means that "Ex Machina" isn't a good watch. It certainly succeeds in his own right and delivers a convincing story with strong performances from start to (almost) finish. I write "almost" because honestly the very ending with the helicopter scene is something that I did not like too much. But until then, it is really all good. There are some tense moments like the power outage scenes, the sessions in general, the Isaac-focused scenes like the one where he tells Gleeson's character about the camera that relies on batteries. So if you enjoy sci-fi a bit more than I do, then I would not be surprised if you consider this one of the best films of the movie year 2014. Like the Academy did as well when they surprisingly honored this movie with a Best Visual Effects Oscar and Garland also scored a nomination for his writing. And it was an absolute career year for Vikander of course, who received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance here and won for another movie at the Oscars as well. Back to this film here, it is tense, atmospheric and also a pretty nice thriller that elaborates interestingly on power (not the electronic approach) and control and with the relationship between the two male protagonists you can also say it is a thriller movie focusing on interhuman relationships. You probably wanna check it out. Thumbs up from me.