Ex Machina (2015) (English Language)

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108min

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander…and more

A mysterious tech-company mogul entices one of his young programmer employees to evaluate a revolutionary artificial intelligence experiment in the form of a beautiful young female machine, the results are disturbing if not unexpected.

Award-winning writer and long-time Danny Boyle collaborator Alex Garland makes his directorial debut with a seemingly cautionary tale of man’s obsession with “playing god” and creating self-aware Artificial Intelligence, being a stylish thriller the A.I. in this case is of course an attractive young female, a fact to which her creator humorously refers in the film itself.

There is nothing new about the fear and debate regarding the potential evolution of artificial intelligence, it’s a legitimate concern within the scientific community and has been depicted on the big screen for decades with varying degrees of success.

Garland’s approach with Ex Machina is to personify the A.I. element within a human frame and an attractive one at that, it might seem like the more disturbing path to take but in reality it is far less interesting or frightening than how experts think the likely development of A.I. might actually occur.

Far more interesting is the weaving of our current obsession with always-connected technology into the film’s storyline, the not-so-subtle dig at large tech companies like Google that are constantly expanding from data-gathering technology into robotics and A.I. itself is an ode to the “Skynet” theory from Terminator 2, whereby mankind loses control of its creations to our ultimate detriment.

There have been many Sci-fi films from the 60’s onwards that have dealt with the issue of Artificial Intelligence and some have done so rather profoundly, Ex Machina is not one of these classics despite a valiant first-time effort from Mr. Garland.

Although interesting to a point, Ex Machina is a stylish but ultimately superficial sci-fi thriller about powerful men playing with dangerous toys.