Who knew translucent robot torsos could be so cool?
Just because you can do something—especially in science—doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
In Alex Garland’s (28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go) directorial debut, Ex Machina, Caleb Smith, a 26-year-old computer coder who works for a big search engine company, wins a Willy Wonka-esque contest to spend a week with the company’s CEO Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac).
Nathan’s house (complex is more like it) is in the middle of nowhere, and only accessible by helicopter. Add that to the fact that most of the property is a windowless subterranean compound, and that should be Caleb’s first clue that something’s not quite right here.
And he’s right.
Caleb hasn’t been brought to spend quality time with Nathan and drink some beers. It turns out that Nathan has developed a fully sentient AI—named Ava—and wants Caleb to see if her intelligence and being is distinguishable from that of a human.
When we’re introduced to Ava (played excellently by Alicia Vikander with both cold detachment and human longing), it’s clear she’s unique from other movie robots, both in her (very cool) appearance and personality. Her limbs and torso are translucent, revealing a mess of wiring and mechanics beneath, “skin” only on her face and hands (an interesting choice to keep the more sensual parts of the body human-like, and the rest mechanical). Ava’s quiet, innocent, and longs to travel beyond the rooms in which Nathan keeps her. And it’s in her talking with Caleb that we start to wonder who to trust here: Ava, or Nathan?
The scenes where Caleb and Ava have their “sessions” are some of the film’s most captivating, due both to the acting and screenplay. Domhnall Gleeson is also very good as Caleb. He has an earnestness about him that plays well into Caleb’s character. You can see his poorly-concealed giddiness at interacting with an AI, his interest—and the workings of his scientific-minded brain—in trying to understand her, and his desire (and then possible shame) of realizing he may want a physical connection with her. It’s also commendable that these sessions feel like real conversations, making for interesting scenes that also further blur the line between human intelligence and AI.
Ex Machina raises some interesting questions. Does a creator have ownership of his creations? What if we can’t distinguish between an AI and a human? If it resembles a human, acts like a human, but we know it’s not, does that change anything? Does it matter? These questions add an interesting layer to the film—and I applaud Alex Garland for asking them—but unfortunately they’re never really explored as much as they could be. Which is ultimately an issue with the film’s overall tone.
Surprisingly, Ex Machina isn’t the thriller the trailers make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong—it has thrilling moments full of tension and dread—but, as a whole, it’s actually quite dramatic (and a little poignant). The paranoia and uncertainty about who (and what) to believe continues until the end but then, once we get there, it’s kind of an Oh, that’s it? (There’s also a slight twist regarding Caleb’s involvement with Ava that seems inconsequential.)
There are moments where the film wants to break out and be that balls-to-the-wall thriller the trailer and TV spots make it out to be, and also times where it aspires to be a quieter meditation on science and artificial intelligence. Both are admiral efforts but wavering between the two makes it seem a bit tonally uneven.
Regardless of its shortcomings, Ex Machina is the kind of thought-provoking Sci-Fi we need more of. It’s not perfect, but hopefully it’s helped pave the way for Hollywood to be on the right track.
8/10
Reviews from the Couch 