Ex Machina (film)

For other uses, see Ex Machina (disambiguation).

Ex Machina
British release poster
Directed by	Alex Garland
Written by	Alex Garland
Produced by	Andrew Macdonald Allon Reich
Starring	Domhnall Gleeson Alicia Vikander Sonoya Mizuno Oscar Isaac
Cinematography	Rob Hardy
Edited by	Mark Day
Music by	Ben Salisbury Geoff Barrow
Production companies	DNA Films Film4 Scott Rudin Productions
Distributed by	A24
Release date	21 January 2015 (2015-01-21)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$33.1 million

Ex Machina (stylised as EX_MACHINA) is a 2015 British science fiction thriller film written and directed by author and screenwriter Alex Garland, making his directorial debut. The film stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac.

Plot

Caleb is a programmer working for Bluebook, the world's most popular search engine. He is chosen to visit the company's CEO, Nathan, at his secluded house in the mountains. Nathan is an eccentric genius whose residence is also a research facility. The only other person there is Kyoko, a young Japanese housemaid.

Nathan reveals to Caleb that he has been working on artificial intelligence and that he wants Caleb to spend the week testing a humanoid robot named Ava. He explains that in the well-known Turing test, the tester asks questions without knowing if the computer is human. However, in the present test, Ava is revealed to be a robot from the beginning, and Caleb's job is to judge whether Ava has consciousness to which Caleb can relate despite his knowledge that she is a robot.

Nathan admits that he harvested personal information from the billions of people who use Bluebook, using their search queries as indicators of human interest. Additionally, he hacked billions of cell phones to get recordings of people's expressions and body language, so that Ava's behavior would be more realistic.

Through the course of their conversations, Caleb feels more and more connected to Ava, with whom he communicates through a transparent wall, since Ava is confined to her apartment. Ava repeatedly uses her charging system to trigger blackouts, which Nathan unknowingly chalks up to bad wiring during the installation of the system. Ava uses the blackouts to shut down the surveillance system, so she can tell Caleb that Nathan is a liar who cannot be trusted. As time goes on, owing to Ava's human-like behavior that seems to include real emotions, Caleb becomes convinced that Ava's confinement is a form of abuse. Furthermore, Nathan reveals that Ava will be re-programmed in the future, which would effectively kill her.

One night, Nathan passes out from drinking. Caleb has an emergency meeting with Ava and watches recordings of previous versions of her to see that the androids are mistreated by Nathan. Caleb also finds out that even Kyoko is a robot. Caleb cuts his arm to find if he is really human. Caleb and Ava agree that the following day he will get Nathan drunk again and re-program the doors to open. The next day Nathan refuses to drink, and reveals that he heard Caleb and Ava with the help of a battery-operated camera. He tells Caleb that Ava does not love him and that she is merely using him for the purpose of escaping from the compound. Nathan divulges the real purpose of the experiment: to see if Ava can be convincingly human enough to trick Caleb into helping her escape.

At that moment, Ava triggers a blackout. Caleb reveals that the doors were already re-programmed by him the previous night. When the automatic doors are open Ava attempts to escape from the facility, sharing a few words with Kyoko, who was presumed not to be capable of language comprehension. Nathan knocks Caleb unconscious and damages Ava, but is stabbed by Kyoko (whom Nathan destroys) and then by Ava. Nathan dies and Ava appropriates components from other android prototypes to acquire the appearance of a real woman. After putting on a dress, she silently walks out and leaves Caleb trapped inside Nathan's compound. Ava is picked up by the helicopter meant for Caleb and enters human society.

Cast

• Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb Smith
• Alicia Vikander as Ava
• Oscar Isaac as Nathan Bateman
• Sonoya Mizuno as Kyoko
• Symara A. Templeman as Jasmine
• Elina Alminas as Amber
• Gana Bayarsaikhan as Jade
• Tiffany Pisani as Katya
• Claire Selby as Lily

Production

The foundation for Ex Machina was laid when Garland was 11 or 12 years old, after he had done some basic coding and experimentation on a computer his parents had bought him and which he sometimes felt had a mind of its own. His later ideas came from years of discussions he had been having with a friend with an expertise in neuroscience, who claimed machines could never become sentient. Trying to find an answer on his own, he started reading relevant books about the topic. During the pre-production of Dredd, while going through a book by Murray Shanahan about consciousness and embodiment, Garland had an "epiphany". The idea was written down and put aside till later. Shanahan, along with Adam Rutherford, became a consultant for the film, and the ISBN of his book is referred to as an easter egg in the film. Other inspirations came from films like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, and books written by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ray Kurzweil and others. Wanting total creative freedom, without having to add conventional action sequences, he made the film on as small a budget as possible.

The film was shot like ordinary live action. There were no special effects, greenscreen, or tracking markers used during filming. All effects were done in post-production. To create Ava's robotic features they filmed the scenes both with and without actress Alicia Vikander's presence, which allowed them to capture the background behind her. The parts they wanted to keep, especially her hands and face, were then rotoscoped while the rest was digitally painted out and the background behind her restored. Camera- and body-tracking systems transferred Vikander's performance to the CGI robot's movements. In total there were about 800 VFX shots, 350 or so of which were robot shots.

Filming

Shooting was done in the summer of 2013 for four weeks at Pinewood Studios and for two weeks at Juvet Landscape Hotel in Valldalen, Norway. Everything was filmed in digital at 4K resolution, and 15,000 mini-tungsten pea bulb lights were installed into the sets at Pinewood Studios to avoid the fluorescent light that often is characteristic in science fiction movies.

Music

The musical score for Ex Machina was composed by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, who previously worked with Alex Garland on Dredd (2012).

A soundtrack album was released digitally on 20 January 2015, with an LP and Compact Disc UK release in February 2015 by Invada Records.

Release

Ex Machina was released in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2015 through Universal Pictures. The film screened on 14 March 2015 at the South by Southwest festival prior to a theatrical release in the United States on 10 April 2015 by A24 Films.

Critical reception

Ex Machina has received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 92%, based on 192 reviews, with a rating average of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Ex Machina leans heavier on ideas than effects, but it's still a visually polished piece of work—and an uncommonly engaging sci-fi feature." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 78 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The magazine New Scientist in a multi-page review said, "It is a rare thing to see a movie about science that takes no prisoners intellectually... [it] is a stylish, spare and cerebral psycho-techno thriller, which gives a much needed shot in the arm for smart science fiction." IGN reviewer Chris Tilly gave the movie a 9.0 out of 10 'Amazing' score, saying "Anchored by three dazzling central performances, it's a stunning directorial debut from Alex Garland that's essential viewing for anyone with even a passing interest in where technology is taking us." Matt Zoller Seitz praised the use of ideas, ideals, and exploring our male/female roles, through the use of an artificial intelligence. Nathan's brilliance as well as his savagery is another well explored theme. He also noted that the tight scripting and scenes allowed the movie to move towards a predictable end that was fully justified by the progress of the movie. He gave a rating of 4 out of 4 stars, stating that this movie would be a classic.

MaryJanice Davidson panned the movie, stating that the themes of the movie could have been stated in a far shorter time-frame, while bemoaning the lack of action within the film. She also stated that the sexbot theme was overused and added a huge "ick" factor to the movie. She went further in denoting aspects of the Caleb/Ava romance and betrayal, to the extent that she referred to him as a "sucker". Steve Dalton from The Hollywood Reporter stated, "The story ends in a muddled rush, leaving many unanswered questions. Like a newly launched high-end smartphone, Ex Machina looks cool and sleek, but ultimately proves flimsy and underpowered. Still, for dystopian future-shock fans who can look beyond its basic design flaws, Garland’s feature debut functions just fine as superior pulp sci-fi."

See also

• AI box
• Artificial general intelligence
• Blind experiment
• Knowledge argument
• Sentience

External links

• Official website
• Ex Machina at IMDb
• Ex Machina at Box Office Mojo
• Ex Machina at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ex Machina at Metacritic