Originally written September 4, 2015

We don’t really get that many good smart sci-fi movies anymore, so seeing something like Ex Machina is pretty welcome. I remember when I saw the trailer for this movie I knew I had to see it. I’ll admit, the movie didn’t quite live completely up to the trailer for me for some reason, but the movie is still a very enjoyable time with an interesting story.

The basics of it is that a programmer named Caleb wins a trip to the house/research facility of the boss of the company that he works for, Nathan. Nathan held this contest because he wanted someone to test out a new project he’s been working on, a robot made to look like a human with actual artificial intelligence. Nathan wants it to pass the Turing Test (where you believe you’re talking to something with an actual conscience rather than just a machine), so he’s called in Caleb to interact with his robot Ava and see what he thinks.

The movie is very plot heavy, so going any more in-depth than that with the story is going into spoiler territory. But basically it plays a lot with the idea of what we’d do if we had actual artificial intelligence, as well as the consequences of it, and these ideas are presented very well in a story with many different twists. I thought some moments in the movie didn’t make much sense, but overall it’s mostly done really well. There’s only three main characters really: Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb, Oscar Isaac as Nathan, and Alicia Vikander as Ava. All three give wonderful performances. I found it interesting to see Domhnall Gleeson interact with a robot the whole movie, because he was in an episode of Black Mirror called “Be Right Back” where he was the robot being interacted with. But anyway, Ex Machina is a great movie, and if you’re looking for something with a smart sci-fi story, I recommend it.

4/5