Ex Machina Review

In my opinion, I found this movie Ex Machina to be thrilling and gripping throughout with different twists and turns that made me, as the audience, feel tense and unsuspecting of what was to come. Not only was the acting noteworthy but so was the soundtrack and special effects. The added benefit of having high quality editing and sound made the movie feel more realistic and believable which in turn made the viewers become more involved with the storyline and in tuned with the waves of emotions coming from the characters. With the acting, editing, special effects, sound/music and props combined it made this movie exceptional due to the continuity with the scenes, this made the film link and flow together so the audience understood what was happening but yet sent them on a different pathway that made the ending so shocking and disturbing. However there was a couple of things that could have been improved such as the pace. The first half of the movie seemed to be very slow and dragged out, when it didn’t need to be, and the second half seemed to be rushed and quick to finish. Another thing is the vocabulary and language of scientific words that were used throughout the film - this made it hard for people, like me, to understand what they meant and hard to stay focused.

This movie was written and directed by Alex Garland who has previously made films such as 28 Days Later (2002), Never Let Me Go (2011), Sunshine (2007) and Dredd (2012). Most movies made by Garland were produced by Andrew Macdonald, Macdonald also produced Ex Machina alongside Allon Reich. Ex Machina is a movie about a young man named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) earning the prize of spending a week with his companies CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac), he receives the prize after winning a programming competition. During his stay he becomes part of Nathan’s Turing Test after discovering his most recent experiment – the robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander). Caleb’s job is to determine the capabilities of Ava’s consciousness and see if she has the emotional capacity that is similar to humans.

Throughout Ex Machina there are tons of examples of high nudity which is to be expected from a 15 rated movie. However, I think there are some ethical issues that need to be considered before watching this film. Firstly, I find it unnecessary to the amount of nudity shown of just females and no males, the maker Nathan only designs female robots who all look attractive and model like. Some people may say this suits the type of character that Nathan is which to some extent I think is true due to his psychotic behaviour that gives the audience the impression of him being mentally ill. Although due to the writer, director, producers etc. being all male implies that the female nudity could be seen as being sexist by not having any scenes with some form of male nudity shown.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and liked how the ending was the opposite of what I was expecting to happen. I thought the actors did an amazing job that made the overall experience seem so realistic which in turn made me feel involved and part of the characters life.