Ex Machina (2015)

Dir. Alex Garland

“A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I.”

I was really looking forward to seeing this. Everything leading up to the film, it’s marketing; the posters, the trailers, word of mouth, I also know some people who worked on it. All the signs said I should really like this film. It has a wonderful setting, it’s beautifully shot (I particularly love the use of extreme wide angles) and of course the subject matter is a sci-fi standard that I love dearly.

The cast are all fantastic, the exchanges between Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander are delectable and Oscar Isaac plays the cliché mad scientist/inventor very well. But, overall, the film is actually quite disappointing. The classic, problematic use of fembots and seemingly obligatory sex toy play-thing aspect is extremely tiresome. The exoctification of Asian women in western films continues to annoy, I’m just going to assume that Alex Garland really likes Ghost In The Shell?

Anyway, the question of humanity’s obsoletism in the face of conscious AI is always an interesting one, and the film eventually gives us something new in the very final third. It’s just a shame that the rest of the film exists purely for that final realisation. It’s a fresh ending, one that can easily be compared to the plight of feminism in the face of our overarching, patriarchal, male hero-led society, an ending I almost felt redeemed the films lack of je ne sais quoi, but the ending is not one that this film is worthy of.

As a piece of entertainment I enjoyed the lesser known 2013 film The Machine by Caradog W. James more than this, and I really wasn’t expecting that to happen at all.