Ex Machina (2015)

Ex Machina

edit: You know what, don't watch the trailer. It has spoiler-ish shots in it.

here's what you need to know: Big billionaire genius CEO (of Google-Facebook, called Bluebook here) invites a randomly-selected employee to his private island retreat to hang out for a week. Turns out it's a private research facility, where he's been building an AI on his spare time. The employee is there to test the AI's intelligence, and try to figure out if it's true consciousness or just a very good simulation of one.

Just saw this movie. Damn. It is goooood. That's all i have to say for now without spoilers. It doesn't have a wide release so it might be hard to find a theatre near you showing it, but try to look for one. It's definitely worth watching.

it's very simple, little to no action. Mostly just guys chatting in the basement, chatting in the living room, chatting at the dinner table. But the shots and framing are very well done, the music helps raise the tension really well, and the whole time you're always left wondering.

semi-spoilers below:

I like how the film doesn't really have twists, per se. It just throws a bunch of curveballs and you don't quite know where each one's going. It teases a whole bunch of different endings - all of them somewhat cliche, but since you can't quite tell which one it's going to land on, I can't call it cliche, or a twist, at all.

for example, you've got the standard "rescue the princess and live happily ever after" ending, the cold and practical "shut it off and build a better version" ending, the "AI goes rampant and kills everyone" ending, the somewhat obvious "twist" where Caleb is the real AI being tested, the "boss is going to kill him to maintain the secret" ending, etc.

All of these possibilities are teased throughout the film, all of them seem like an obvious direction the film is going to go at one point or another, and the direction it took still left me wondering.

amazing script, amazing acting. Fantastic debut film for the director.

edited 30th Apr '15 10:05:44 AM by willyolio

It's actually showing on Guam for a brief period, I'll definitely need to check it out this weekend before it disappears from theaters.

Saw it last night. Pretty good movie overall. You'll have to be slightly familiar with previous sci-fi works regarding sentience and Artificial Intelligence though, because some assumptions and hand-waving is done in regards to how Ava is already so sophisticated beyond what most modern computers can perform.

Spoilers ahead: Funny thing is, Ava already passes as human in pretty much single way, save for her slightly stiff movements and body. She's curious, she wants to see and interact with the outside world, can determine if you're lying and lie herself, can deduce solutions based on incomplete information and even attempts to figure out ways to hide her behaviors and act out against her creator. Yet the one thing that brings her sentience and intelligence into question is her lack of empathy. She's willing to abandon Caleb to almost certain starvation despite the fact that he had a puppy-dog crush on her and was willing to help her escape. She encouraged Kyoko to kill Nathan, and then finished the job with few signs of remorse. Because of this, I doubt she's gonna last long in the outside world, she's just too awkward and will be discovered the moment she again backstabs someone out of fear or begins to break down.

Wish I'd spent the ticket money to watch it instead of sneaking in after the Avengers though, cause movies like these don't come around very often and it probably would've helped it in the box office... it's not making very much right now, only a little over $12.5 million.

One word of caution, if you're planning to see it with friends or family... there's quite a bit of full-frontal female nudity in this movie, especially towards the end. Thus, I'd strongly advise against bringing any kids or even adolescents to see this movie. The whole plot would probably fly right over their heads anyway.

edited 8th May '15 6:45:23 PM by SgtRicko

Ava leaving Caleb behind was cold, but after the Bluebeard-esque discovery of the previous models, and Nathan's treatment of Kyoko, I didn't think Ava and Kyoko's response was different from, say, understandable actions by a human woman who'd found out that the man who held her prisoner also kept sex slaves.

During Caleb and Nathan's first discussion about whether Ava had a genuine crush on Caleb, I was wondering if the movie would address why Nathan had made his robot female, heterosexual, and with a conventionally attractive face and body shape. I was pleased that it very much did.

The movie was very good at keeping the audience guessing. Up until Nathan showed Caleb his lab and explained some things about AI, I was suspecting Nathan hadn't even created Ava himself, because he didn't seem thoughtful or hard-working enough to do so and especially because he kept dodging all of Caleb's comments or questions about the technical stuff.

Not that I understand the science behind it, but the plot sounds interesting. There was some "thought experiment" I read about once where two humans chatted with each other, one roleplaying as an artificial intelligence, and under a very specific set of rules, the AI had to convince the other person to "let them go", even with that person knowing the other person was, in fact, a regular person. Was only performed twice IIRC and the AI won both times. This sounds similar, just... corporate.

Well I'm out. I can't handle much more than Battlestar Galactica-levels of nudity.

edited 10th May '15 4:22:51 PM by Soble

I was intrigued by this movie, and if there's female nudity I'm sold.

Loved it.

I don't think lack of empathy makes Ava any less sapient. Up to 4% of people are sociopaths, which can include a lack of empathy, and that hardly makes them less of a person.

I'm wondering how Ava keeps herself charged after she escapes.

edited 10th May '15 6:12:52 PM by Bur

From what I'm reading Ava apparently can recharge quite easily, and the tech has already been made publicly available in their world. Something about induction pads that only require physical contact to begin recharging the object in question, and she seems to have well enough control over that function to the point she can intentionally cause overloads somehow and also control the amount of energy she receives.

And in regards to Ava's lack of human empathy, I think it might be argued that while she is intelligent in a "technical" sense due to everything being programmed into her, she isn't very knowledgeable in the emotional sense. Children, especially toddlers, are extremely needy and selfish, and need to learn the values of sharing and empathy. Otherwise they'll have a hard time understanding the feelings of others and not comprehend why certain behaviors are considered harmful or not. Thus, while Ava is intelligent enough to put on an extremely convincing poker face and read the emotions and underlying language beneath expressions due to her having the entire internet's worth of related material in her mind, she doesn't understand the more subtle and base nuances behind affection besides it's manipulative uses. Hence, why she was willing to kill Nathan and left Caleb to die.

Well, yeah, you shouldn't take a child for this movie. Its clearly rated R for violence, sex, and profanity. Definitely a hard 'R' as opposed to a movie that just has the f word a lot.

This is a really good movie-Oscar Isaac is great. I'm almost excited for the next X-Men movie now.

In Finland it's rated 12, whereas for instance Lord of the Rings movies are rated 16. Nudity wasn't even an issue but it has warning symbols for violence and horror.

About Ava's empathy, the director and writer, Alex Garland said in reddit he thought Ava has empathy but not necessarily for humans but for other machines.

edited 12th May '15 12:49:19 PM by harkko

Just watched this movie and it's interesting to note there's two ways to view the movie:

1. The Feminist interpretation which is about the movie being a man who wants to create an obedient female slave and the White Knight guy who is condescending in his own way to her.

2. The Machine interpretation which is the fact the mistake is treating Ava as a woman/human just because she looks like one when she's anything but.

I interpreted it as why you never trust a goddamn AI.

I just watched this on HBO Max.

Rule 4 of robotics, never have sex with your creations.

Good movie overall. Don't know why the android-human aesthetic appealed to me so much but it's been on my queue for a while now. And I knew I recognized Ava from somewhere. Alicia Vikander played Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

Also boy was there a lot more nudity in this movie than I was expecting going in.

That ending too hoo boy was that cold. I almost want a sequel. The twist not twist with Caleb thinking he was an AI that Nathan might be testing caught me off guard.