A thought provoking, well executed film

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2015)

"Ex Machina" was a film that I previously had mild interest in and I was invited by a couple friends to watch it. Going into Ex Machina I had no idea what it was about besides the fact that there is a robot and luckily it was much more complex than that.
The story revolves around a young programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) who wins a contest to spend a week with his CEO (Oscar Isaac) in a secluded mountain house. The CEO, Nathan, tells Caleb that he isn't there just for relaxation, he's there to test an AI that Nathan created. Caleb is meant to perform a "Turing Test", a test meant to prove an AI can pass as a human. The AI has the breathtaking face of a woman (Alicia Vikander) and is called "Ava". Almost instantly Caleb begins to grow a connection with Ava and she tells him that Nathan is a liar and should not be trusted. The rest of the film is Caleb trying his very best to cope with everything going on around him.
This was one of the best films I've seen this year (which is saying something) and I enjoy the fact it did not spoon-feed us all of the information. The three actors in the film are incredible and are perfect fits although Vikander steals the show with her performance of a AI fearing for its life. The twists and turns fit the premise of the film and just like Caleb you begin to forget what is real. Personally, I felt as if Nathan's death was done poorly and felt very lazy; they could not think of a way to kill him off so they treated him as an idiot, ignoring the fact that he has been a genius every moment leading up to that. Besides that I think the movie was brilliant and felt like a well-oiled machine.