May 16th in Chicago: This film was viewed at the Century Landmark Theater, Chicago's art-house theater. It had been awhile since I last saw a film here and was pleasantly surprised to find there's a bar there now and they allow you to take your drinks into the theater (they serve bottled beer at the snack bar...awesome)!
Ex Machina is a variation of the Latin phrase, deus ex machina which means "god from the machine." Originally used a plot device "whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object." Let's just say that there is an unsolvable problem that gets solved with no explanation (other than it exists) and the deus part derives from man creating life. More on this later.
The film revolves around it's 3 main characters; Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), the reclusive billionaire CEO of the fictional search engine company Bluebook (substituting for Google). Caleb Smith (Domhall Gleeson), a programmer for Bluebook who won a company contest to assist Bateman at his home on a special project. The last character is Ava (brilliantly played by Alicia Vikander), we'll get into as we go. When Caleb arrives at Bateman's ultra reclusive estate, he is told that he will assist Bateman in testing a humanoid robot named Ava.
Caleb's job is to see if Ava has consciousness through a series of Voight-Kampff-esque tests. Caleb clearly starts to have feelings for Ava because she has very human like qualities (like looking very attractive in clothes and a wig). Ava is also able to overload the estates generator to cause brief power outages and during a blackout she reveals that Caleb can't be trusted. Eventually Caleb formulates a plan that will free Ava. The plan is set to go down on just prior to Caleb's departure. However, Bateman had been watching the whole time (even during the blackout) ad is prepared. However, it is Ava who outsmarts them both and she escapes (leaving a Caleb behind with a trampled upon heart).
Ex Machina marks the directorial debut of veteran writer Alex Garland. The film is very character driven and minimalist. To me, this is what a small budget science fiction film is all about. The acting is nothing short of excellent and the effects are very good. I would recommend seeing this film. I look forward to seeing more films from Garland because this was a very good debut.
Ava being the robot is obviously the "machina" portion. She does indeed prove she has consciousness (in a big way), therefore cementing Bateman as god or "deus." Bateman has succeeded in creating sentient artificial life. But is the world ready? On a side note, this is how it's going to happens. It won't be zombies that get the best of humans. It will be the machines. Just like they do in the Matrix trilogy, the Terminator franchise and of course Dune...
Hopefully I didn't give too much of the film away. Thank you for your time.
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