Ex Machina is the directorial debut of Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later (and 28 Weeks Later). It tells the story of Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson from About Time), an IT developer who is invited by a billionaire CEO to participate in a groundbreaking experiment—administering a Turing test to a humanoid robot called Ava (Alicia Vikander). Meeting the robot with feelings of superiority at first, questions of trust and ethics soon collide with the protagonist’s personal views. While this dazzling film does not rely on them, the visual effects and the overall look-feel of Ex Machina are absolutely stunning and were rightly picked for an Academy Award. They make Ex Machina feel just as casually futuristic as the equally stylish Her and, like Joaquin Phoenix, Gleeson aka Caleb must confront the feelings he develops towards a machine, despite his full awareness that ‘she’ is just that. This is possibly as close to Kubrick as anyone got in the 21st century. Ex Machina is clever, thrilling, and packed with engaging ideas.
""Ex Machina," despite the stutters, slowly finds its grip and starts to squeeze."
— Anthony Lane
"Ex Machina is the best kind of speculative fiction: its action is brisk, its characters startling, and its meanings multifarious."
— Michael Sragow
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, 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.
Oscars
1 win, 1 nomination
Golden Globes
1 nomination
BAFTA
4 nominations
DGA
1 win
Nat. Board of Review
1 win
LAFCA
1 win
European Film Awards
2 nominations
Ex Machina is a fantastic film focusing on A.I. It’s not hard to follow, it’s easy to see the flaws in such intelligence and also in the humans who make them. I highly recommend!
Excellent A.I. Sci-Fi movie, not action packed, more likely to make you ponder.
One of the most unforgettable scifi movies I have ever seen. It was also a revelation to see the differences between human intelligence and AI portrayed so well.
Fantastic Sci fi story with scary twists and realistic futuristic scenarios.
Awesome visuals, great acting, interesting subject matter and suspenseful story are some of the reasons why this is the best sci-fi movie of the decade.