Say it with me: Ex Machina.

Rating: 8/10 (26 June 2016)

Say it with me: Ex Machina. That should clear things up forever (*shakes head and continues to pronounce it differently each time).
Ex Machina, a sci-fi chamber play written and directed by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine). Dohmnall Gleeson plays Caleb, a coder in a large internet firm, that wins a trip to spend a week at the company owner's secluded mountain retreat. Once he arrives he meets Nathan, the owner of the firm, played by Oscar Isaac, who wants Caleb to perform a Turing test on his robot Ava, played by Alicia Vikander, to determine if she is "human." The question seems simple until confronted with Ava.
Elegantly minimalist in style, Ex Machina is grand in philosophical pondering. This film is not just an exploration of man's relationship with Artificial Intelligence. It explores traditional male-female dynamics, the beauty myth, the God complex, and self- determinism, while masking itself in applied science.
Oscar Isaac offers a richly diverse performance, but it's Vikander's portrayal of Ava that is superb, balancing vulnerability and manipulation. The script is well-written, consistently building intelligent, thought-provoking scenes, while creating an atmosphere of doomed inevitability, which when it comes, is deeply satisfying.