Ex Machina (film)

For other uses, see Ex Machina.

Ex Machina
British release poster
Directed by	Alex Garland
Written by	Alex Garland
Produced by	Andrew Macdonald Allon Reich
Starring	Domhnall Gleeson Alicia Vikander 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 dates	21 January 2015 (2015-01-21) (United Kingdom) 10 April 2015 (2015-04-10) (United States)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$29.3 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 computer programmer working for Bluebook, the world's most popular search engine. He is chosen in what is stated to be a company lottery to meet and 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 in the compound is Kyoko, a Japanese woman who is Nathan's assistant and house maid.

Nathan wants Caleb to spend the week performing a test on a humanoid robot named Ava. Nathan explains that in the classical Turing test of artificial intelligence, the tester can interrogate the computer and is shown its responses without knowing whether they come from an artificial intelligence or a human. If its replies cannot be distinguished from the replies a real human would give, the test is passed, and the computer must be considered intelligent. But in this new test, Nathan intentionally makes it obvious to Caleb from the beginning that Ava is an android—if Caleb still considers Ava to be "human," then passing the test will be truly meaningful.

Nathan admits that he surreptitiously used the clout of his company to collect audiovisual data from billions of people, accumulating their most intimate experiences, and that he loaded this information to Ava's sophisticated chemical brain, which is very flexible and advances independently like humans'. Nathan also admits that Caleb was deliberately selected to test Ava because of his exceptional abilities and knowledge of artificial intelligence.

Caleb gradually develops an attachment to Ava, who appears to have real human emotions. But Ava privately tells him that Nathan cannot be trusted. Caleb also learns that Nathan's androids are treated as prisoners, with an automated security system keeping them confined to the research facility.

Ava asks Caleb what will happen if she fails Nathan's Turing test. He cannot answer. But later, Nathan tells Caleb that even if Ava passes the test, her memories will be erased when he develops the next AI version, which would be tantamount to killing her. Nathan also predicts that one day artificial intelligence will surpass humans and consider them inferior primitives. However, Caleb notices behavior from Nathan that he interprets as emotional abuse towards his androids. In addition, Caleb learns that Kyoko, who he thought was human, is an android. Caleb has sympathy for Ava and decides to help her escape from the compound.

Caleb tells Ava that he will get Nathan drunk and reprogram all the doors to open if there is a power failure. Caleb asks Ava to trigger an electrical blackout at 10 p.m. the following day. Nathan, however, becomes aware of Caleb’s plans and his emotional relationship with Ava, and warns Caleb that Ava does not love him and that she is merely using him for the purpose of escaping from the facility. Nathan informs Caleb that the fact that Ava was able to emotionally manipulate Caleb into helping her escape indicates that Ava passed the real test; his research is now a historic breakthrough. But Caleb has managed to stay one step ahead of Nathan, and when the power blackout is triggered, the security system is disabled as Caleb, suspecting that Nathan was aware of his plans, had hacked into the security system of the building the previous day.

When the automatic doors are unlocked, Ava attempts to escape from the facility. Nathan tries to capture Ava and breaks off one of her forearms, but she stabs and kills him with Kyoko's help. Kyoko dies in the fight. Ava then appropriates components from other android prototypes to repair her arm and to make improvements to her body to acquire the appearance of a real human. After putting on a dress, she silently walks out of the building, leaving Caleb to die, locked inside Nathan's office, just as Nathan had warned. Ava is picked up the next morning by the helicopter meant for Caleb, and enters human society.

Cast

• Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb Smith
• Alicia Vikander as Ava the A.I.
• 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

Garland got the idea for Ex Machina while reading a book by Murray Shanahan about consciousness and embodiment during the pre-production of Dredd. The idea was written down and put aside till later. Other inspirations came from movies like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Altered States, and books written by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ray Kurzweil and others.

He wanted the movie to be made on the smallest possible budget for creative reasons:

"The reason to keep this small was simply because this story and the way I wanted to execute the story required pretty much total creative freedom, and the way to get creative freedom at the level of film I work in is to make it as cheaply as you can. So, it's to do with protecting the movie basically. I mean, you can imagine if somebody said—and by the way, people have said this kind of thing—if we inject a car chase or something like that, you know, or a big fight in a helicopter and then the helicopter crashes and people jump out and carry on the fight on the ground and all that kind of stuff, it would interfere hugely tonally and actually thematically on every level with this film. So, the budget and the contained quality were about having the freedom to do it properly."

The movie was shot like ordinary live action. There were no special effects or greenscreen during filming, everything was done in post-production. To create Ava's robotic features they first filmed her scenes like live action, and then copied the shoots again without 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.

Filming

The film was shot in the summer of 2013 for four weeks at Pinewood Studios and two weeks at Juvet Landscape Hotel in Valldalen, Norway.

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 South by Southwest prior to a theatrical release in the United States on 10 April 2015 by A24 Films.

Critical reception

Ex Machina has received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 91%, based on 174 reviews, with a rating average of 8.1/10. 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 5 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".

See also

• Artificial general intelligence
• 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