Year: 2015
Genre: Science Fiction
It's been a while since my last review on here. Mainly because as I have previously mentioned on Facebook, since late Summer last year there has been a glut of poor quality films released at the cinema. Also, I tend not to review DVD releases because people have already seen them. Entrance fees are pretty high these days at the cinema so it takes a pretty good release to get me back into the reviewers chair.
Written and directed by Alex Garland, who's other films include '28 Days Later', and 2012's 'Dredd', 'Ex_Machina' takes Dominic Gleeson from 'About Time' to the mountain hideaway of internet entreprenteur / megolmaniac Oscar Isaac. Once there, he is told he is to take the Turing Test, to test a machines ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from that of a human. The machine in this case is a cyborg female called Ava, created by Isaac's character Nathan, and played flawlessly by Swedish newcomer Alicia Vikander.
Forget the clunkyness of the Terminator, or the cyberpunk style of Veerhoven's 87 'Robocop', Vikander's cyborg is very much inspired by the work of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama. Beautifully simplistic, her performance seamlessly blurs the lines between human and artificial life. The character really is an Academy Award worthy triumph of special effects and cgi.
The further Glesson gets into the Turing test, the more the audience is left asking if Ava's artificial intelligence software is developing, or if she simply programmed to respond to male stimuli. This happens in parallel with Issac's character seemingly becoming more and more cunning in anticipation of his experiments conclusion.
Sci fi fans will rejoice at 'Ex_Machina'. With a score reminiscent of Kubricks '2001 Space Odessey', and glorious set locations, it is a definite five out of five stars.
You'd be a fool to miss it.
