Ex Machina

As a society, we are fascinated by things or ideas that could further develop mankind into something better. This must be true since Hollywood has delved into such an array of films with the hope that we can evolve into a greater, better species. We can go all the way back to "Frankenstein" '31 of bringing a corpse back to life, "Flatliners" was just a modern day version of the same thing, "A.I." delved into these same ideas putting in a kid as an artificial intelligence. Hey, even the animated marketplace has taken a slice of the pie with the recent "Frankenweenie", basically a homage to Frankenstein. So why not explore another production of this ever changing notion that mankind needs a jolt--in the form of "Ex Machina".

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a 26 year-old coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private retreat belonging to Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location, he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl, Ava (Alicia Vikander). Nathan enlists Caleb to evaluate everything he can about Ava--her likes, her dislikes, how she feels about Caleb, etc., not realizing that, after Caleb starts interviewing her, she actually has a mind of her own.

Others to round out the cast are Corey Johnson as Jay, Sonoya Mizuno as Kyoko, Symara A. Templeman as Jasmine and Claire Selby as Lily.

For this being his first feature directorial debut, Alex Garland certainly helmed this with precision and determination. The way the emotions slowly developed as this exercise of evaluation started to crumble was believable and realistic. He will continue getting more work in the director's chair--in fact he will be directing "Annihilation" soon. It was also written well by Garland ("28 Days Later..." '02, "Sunshine" '07, "Never Let Me Go" '10, "Dredd" '12). He is certainly treading on familiar ground, hence his resume. Obscure, gritty, intense seems to be his thing, and he knows it well. This is such a cat-and mouse game with Caleb and Nathan with Ava basically pitting one against the other. Who's lying and who's telling the truth. With this happening, there are several twists and turns that will keep you wondering. I can't give out any of the twists, lest it could spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that it will keep you glued to the screen even though there are only three actors virtually in the cast. Now that's good writing. As this is not a formulaic storyline, the ending is a bit bittersweet, but life, many times, can and is like that.

Whether one is into the sci-fi genre or not, this is a film for all who are into people being thrown into situations that they find they might not be able to recover from, but certainly hope that they can.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                            Rated: R                                109mins.