Ex Machina (2015) Review

"Isn't it strange, to create something that hates you?"

-Ava

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programer at the world's dominant search engine company, Blue Book.  He wins a lottery to spend a week at the remote and luxurious home of the company's CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac).  Nathan's home turns out to be a research facility and only he and a servant live there.  Nathan requests Caleb's help.  Nathan has created a humanoid robot, Ava (Alicia Vikander), and wants Caleb to test her to see if she indeed has artificial intelligence.  Ava and Caleb bond, but she tells him not to trust Nathan, and Caleb discovers that there is something much more nefarious going on than he was led to believe.

What Works:

I have to start with the performances, which really carry this film.  There are only a handful of characters in this movie and both Gleeson and Vikander do an excellent job.  Best of all is Oscar Issac.  His character is a super-genius, but comes off as a bro, who likes to drink and have a good time.  It's an interesting spin on this type of character.  As the film goes on we see the darker and more abusive side of the character and Oscar Issac is easily the best part of the film.

The cinematography and the visual effects are all excellent.  Ava really looks like a robot and the design of her body is fantastic.  The movie as a whole simply looks great.  There aren't a ton of moments for the movie to get super visual as it's such a contained story, but when it does have the opportunity, it nails it.

The film does an excellent job at building tension.  We quickly realize there is something bad going on at this facility, but we aren't sure what it could be.  Our imaginations are left to run wild for most of the film as we learn more and more about the dark side of Nathan.  The anticipation is pretty insane and really makes the move memorable.

From here on out, there will be spoilers.  Ex Machina is a really good movie and I do recommend it, but it has a few problems, but I can't really talk about them without spoiling the film, so go watch it for yourself and see what you think.

One last positive.  I love the scene where Caleb cuts himself open to make sure he is not a robot.  I was wondering if that was going to be the twist from pretty early on it the film, so I'm really glad they addressed it in such a grotesque manner.

What Sucks:

I have two problems with Ex Machina.  First is the reveal of what Nathan is doing to the robots.  This is done in two parts with Caleb looking at camera footage and then looking in Nathan's closet.  The closet reveal is solid, but I did not care for the camera footage segments.  The videos aren't clear about what Nathan was doing and I actually had to look it up.  I thought he was just doing tests on the  mechanical movements and setting up cameras to record it.  The film does a poor job of showing what Nathan is really up to.

My other problem is the ending of the film.  Ava kills Nathan and simply leaves Caleb locked inside the facility with no guilt whatsoever.  There just wasn't any set up for Ava's heel-turn.  It was very unsatisfying.  I don't mind a dark ending like this, I just need it to be set-up and make sense.  A single scene earlier in the movie that shows Ava's darker side could have solved this, but we get nothing of the sort besides one scene near the end where Nathan suggests Ava is playing Caleb.  With a few tweaks, this ending could have worked, but it just felt a little too out-of-nowhere and didn't really jive with what we had previously seen of Ava's character.

Verdict:

Ex Machina is a solid science fiction movie that has great visuals, does an excellent job of building tension, and has some really amazing performances, particularly from Oscar Isaac.  I don't love the ending and the reveal about Issac's character could have been handled better, but this movie definitely has got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good