Ex Machina
Director: Alex Garland
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Domhmall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac
108 mins; Class 15;
KRS Film Releasing
When Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at the world’s largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week working with the company’s reclusive CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac), he has no idea that he is in fact there to participate in an experiment involving Nathan’s latest creation – an artificial intelligence named Ava housed in a beautiful female humanoid body.
Ex Machina takes as its premise the Turing Test; the test of a machine’s ability to think like a human being (named, of course, after the daddy of computers, Alan Turing, portrayed so excellently by Benedict Cumberbatch in the recent The Imitation Game).
And yet, the twist here is that Nathan does not hide the fact that Ava is a robot – wanting to test whether the robot actually has consciousness of her own when interacting with a human.
Ex Machina is a challenging sci-fi thriller, once more tackling the niggling and ever more topical question of the consequences should artificial intelligence become an everyday reality and ultimately outwit its creators – as witnessed in the likes of Terminator series, The Matrix trilogy, and the recent (and not-so-successful) Transcendence.
It is a film that is low on physical action and high on cerebral exploits, yet this is not merely about the technology itself.
Human emotions run high as the interactions between the master, Nathan, his apprentice Caleb and the subject Ava become more profound and challenging, and what ensues is a love triangle of sorts.
The pace unfolds in a slow yet always riveting manner, slowly building the tension. Writer and director Alex Garland keeps a tight, taut lid on the absorbing drama, as it builds up to the answer to the question that lies beneath: despite having no humanity, can artificial intelligence be more human than us?
It is a clever and riveting sci-fi, brought to life by the superb troika of actors brought together by Garland.
Isaac is mesmerising as the eccentric and brilliant billionaire scientist holed up in his multi-million dollar compound – a man who sees himself as superior intellectually, physically and financially.
Human emotions run high
Nathan is a 21st century version of the mad scientist trope, yet Isaac’s performance elevates the character to so much more, a performance that is both fiercely intelligently and physically threatening as he slowly starts to unravel mentally, while his creation seems to evolve more.
Domhnall Gleeson’s Caleb is the polar opposite: sensitive, intelligent and vulnerable, he is a man whose genuine emotional engagement with the robot reveals his inner weaknesses, yet the man proves his mettle when the chips are down.
Good as the men are, it is Alicia Vikander who truly remains ingrained in the memory once the final credits roll.
Her performance as Ava is central to the question posed by the film and she is wholly convincing as a technological creation that may or may not be thinking for itself.
Just as Garland’s script keeps us guessing for a good long while, so does Vikander in her portrayal, making the character, a robot, as complex and as three-dimensional as the people she is with.
Ex Machina matches its substantial subject matter with style – the story unfolds in a building of a stark yet sophisticated design situated in a jaw-dropping beautiful mountainous region miles away from anyone or anywhere; the house’s cold décor and its isolated surroundings heightening the tension of the story even more.