Ex Machina

SPOILERS

From the outset Ex Machina is clearly a stylish, modern, film. It begins with computer programmer Caleb winning some sort of competition at work and being flown off to his boss's private facility... which seems to be in Norway and takes more than 2 hours to fly over in a helicopter... wow, that's big.

Clearly the boss, Nathan, has something to hide because the helicopter can't go near the house and Caleb has to walk the last stretch along the river and through the woods.

When he arrives an automated system, which knows his name, takes his picture and prints him a key card for opening the door. This seems a bit silly; if it recognises him with enough confidence to give him a key, then why not just open the door for him... who needs a key? [the plot, it turns out later]

Caleb wanders in and eventually finds Nathan pummelling a punch-bag. Nice boss, he knows you are coming, knows you have arrived and can't be arsed to greet you. This, it turns out, is the least of Nathan's character flaws.

Nathan's house looks like a prison that's been designed by Ikea. And in a sense that's exactly what it is... except the furniture is probably more expensive than that because I think Nathan is supposed to be the richest man in the world, or thereabouts.

I found Nathan quite sinister from the start. He says he wants to be Caleb's friend, but clearly he's the boss. He seems to drink constantly, exercise obsessively and treat his house-keeper Kyoko pretty badly.

Anyway, we soon get down to business. Caleb is here to test Nathan's AI robot, Ava, for a week to see if she is truly intelligent. And everyone seems quite excited about that. Ava less so, perhaps.

Caleb questions Ava's appearance as a sexy robot, thinking he is being deliberately distracted. Nathan reassures him that everything is as it seems, but shows sparks of anger at Caleb when challenged on some points.

There are a few thinly disguised digs at Google from Nathan when he describes some of his technology to Caleb. Other people were too busy trying to monetise search to do it properly, he says. So how did he become the world's richest man then?

Ava and Caleb's interview sessions are shown. They are a bit disappointing, to be honest. I don't know what I expected but there seemed to be something missing in these scenes. It gets more confusing when Caleb realises that he clearly wasn't chosen at random by Nathan, and Nathan admits that he was specially selected as the best programmer in the company.

Things get a bit creepy as you slowly realise that Nathan's housekeeper is probably also a robot and that Nathan is having sex with her. In fact he seems more obsessed with human-robot sexuality than intelligence. The more the film goes on the more unhinged Nathan seems.

It turns out than Ava can trigger temporary power cuts in the house/prison and uses these opportunities to warn Caleb that he shouldn't trust Nathan. Somehow you know that even though Nathan supposedly can't hear these little chats, he probably can. But what you don't know is whether Ava really believes Nathan can hear or not.

Clearly Caleb believes that Ava is intelligent and he also feels some affection for her. Maybe more than that. He is certainly troubled when he learns from Nathan that Ava will probably be upgraded to form the basis of a new model, losing her memories and thus current self in the process.

This is where the key-cards come in. Caleb gets Nathan drunk, which isn't hard, and steals his card... allowing him to get into Nathan's private rooms and see video of previous AI models. Nathan hasn't treated them very well at all... nasty man. Caleb also has complete access to all the security software and immediately knows how to write some code to modify it! Yeah, right.

Caleb tries to get Nathan drunk again so that he can help Ava escape. But Nathan isn't drinking anything but water today...

Then we get the big reveal. This is quite clever. It turns out that Nathan knew Caleb has going to help Ava escape because that was the real test; to see if Ava could trick Caleb into loving her enough to free her.

Caleb wasn't chosen because he was the best programmer, but because he was single and lonely. Ava was even designed to match the type of girl he searches for on the internet.

At this point Caleb is looking pretty dejected and Nathan is Mr Smug. But when the escape plan begins with a power-cut Caleb calmly explains that he always assumed Nathan was listening in somehow during the previous power-cuts so he enacted his part of the plan already. Nathan's smugness evaporates, Ava is out.

The conclusion of the film is a bit clunky. There is a brief fight between Ava and Nathan which Nathan is winning until he's stabbed in the back (literally) by Kyoko, then finished off by Ava. Ava then locks Caleb in his room and gets herself some more skin (*) so she can pass for human, before leaving the complex and catching the helicopter which has arrived to take Caleb home.

Curiously the helicopter pilot doesn't seem to question the fact that his passenger has changed gender.

(* on the skin: it's not clear how far in the future we are here, but making a robot with realistic skin, eyes, hair, hands and feet seems to be almost as big an achievement as making one that is intelligent. Oddly this isn't really commented on)

I think the ending would have been more dramatic if the film had just finished with Ava leaving the complex with Nathan dead and Caleb locked in. The last few minutes didn't add anything, because we already knew what Ava was going to do (go to the traffic intersection).

The twists at the end explain some of the odd behaviour of the characters throughout the film. So I think overall Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander do a great job. Unfortunately, at the time you are watching the film the middle part is a bit irritating... I'd go as far as to say that I got bored in the middle.

That makes it quite hard to rate this film. I'd say I mostly enjoyed it. But I think that the earlier British AI movie The Machine was more fun, despite its much lower budget.