Review of Ex Machina (2015) by Epoc — 29 Apr 2015

Ex Machina is a story of this massively intelligent computer geek played by Domnhall Gleeson, who wins this huge award at a competition, and as a reward gets to spend a week in the mansion of the inventor of the this world's generic version of google, Oscar Isaac.

For years Isaac has been building this super attractive female A.I, and now he wants Domnhall to put this A.I under various tests to see if they have actually created A.I. On paper the opening act of this movie sounds completely laborious, but it still manages to compel with it's exceptionally well written dialogue which works absurdly well with acting strengths of the 3 main characters.

We see from the get go how smart both Domnhall and Isaac really are. It's clear they have found a niche in intellectual dialogue, as every line was delivered as if they fully understood the subject at hand, and their personal chemistry and perplexing sense of humour is down right fascinating.

Then we have Alicia Vikander, who plays the A.I. And I can already tell she's already got a long career ahead of her. The way she can be so stiff and robotic yet act purposefully to the contextual drama is beyond me, yet some how she manages to pull it off.

I think this movie has kick started the career's of 3 top notch actors. However, it's really the 2nd and the 3rd act that bring this movie up. As the A.I starts reacting to tests in extremely scary ways, conflict and tension grows between the 3 protagonists.

But what really brings this aspect to life, is again the superb dialogue. It's worded so cleverly that it's hard to tell any ones true meaning, even in the most simple of lines. It constantly makes you re think who you should really trust with every line spoken.

One minute your trust lies in the A.I, but then with another line of dialogue it changes to Isaac, creating nail bitting levels of tension. Despite this, there is one major draw back to this movie. While the dialogue is so complex with several layers of meaning in each and every line, the overall narrative is extremely cliched and goes for the pretentious examination of humanity plot line, resulting in the 3rd act suffering.

A lot. However, this is still an excellently rounded and masterfully crafted movie, and a highly recommend watch.