Ex Machina Film Review

Wow, Alex Garland really blew me away with this., Ex Machina. I've always understood that he was an incredible filmmaker and this was meant to be his magnum opus, but he's really outdone himself here.

The entire movie is made on the basis of a thought experiment. What if we made an actual artificial intelligence, what would it mean, how would we react, and how can we know it's authentically intelligent. It is ahead of its time by at least a decade. Ex Machina is great in that it provides an unbiased well thought out objective take on its concept that can be read by many a people with completely different opinions on the matter. Still have them all relate to the topic in a meanful way and form an individual opinion from the movie. Suffice to say this is a far more evolved take on AI than 'I, Robot' (2004).

I think that the nature of the story wouldn't work if every character didn't served a functional purpose to the story unique to their personality and motivations that can drive the story forward. The two main male characters are perfectly opposite in temperaments and equal in intellect. They openly confront the issue of the AI, Ava. It's the perfect balance of imbalances and as the relationships between the characters gets fleshed out, so does the story.

The location alone provides so much contrast of natural beauty to a sterile unfeeling prison. I also just enjoy the environment that it inhabits as both are completely devoid of human life. If you strip away the context of this movie, it'd be prime real estate. Oh, and the cinematography is just so clever in how they shoot facial expressions in coversations or the rooms of the house, the colour grading, the score.

Personally, I think I could talk about this movie non-stop. But I don't think I could possibly cover everything that's good about it because I'm just one person and great art lends itself to the interpretation as many people as possible. The real merit of art is to not just make the audience feel but to make them think.
Adam Geraghty