The Machine

I love it when a film comes along which shows that you don't need to spend a fortune to make a great film. Even a sci-fi film. The budget for The Machine was less than £1,000,000 and I enjoyed it immensely.

Don't think that means there are no special effects, or bad effects. Because The Machine does have some great sci-fi moments, they are just used very sparingly, which adds to their impact. The sets are also very minimalist, but that fits well with the story too.

It is the cleverness of the story that is the key to the success of the film. The pacing is also excellent, with calm sciency sequences often surprisingly punctured by moments of violence.

Toby Stephens plays the brooding troubled genius superbly and is nicely complemented by Caity Lotz as his less cynical, wilder, unconventional colleague. Again the story is clever here: their relationship doesn't quite develop in the way that you might expect.

If I have a small complaint it is that the bad guy played by Denis Lawson doesn't always cut it. That may be a bit harsh, because this is a difficult character. He's not really a bad guy, for a start, since everyone involved knows what the objectives of the Machine programme are and he's just the one in charge.

Those quibbles are more than balanced out by the mysterious implant people who I really didn't know what to make of right up until the end. Given the previous surprises I also didn't know how it was going to finish...

So, great film despite the low budget. I highly recommend this.