Ex Machina

2015 sci-fi nightmare

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A frequently-inebriated genius makes himself a robot with a rockin' bod and then invites over a computer nerd to see if he gets horny. He does!

One of my favorite things about this movie is the visual contrast between this cold ultra-modern house that Oscar Isaac's character lives and works in and the natural setting that encompasses it, perpetually lingering on the fringes. I wonder if I'm the only person who's seen this who found the trees both beautiful and menacing.

This Domhnall Gleeson fellow has become ubiquitous. He's like a dorky everyman--an everydork. And I don't mean that in a negative way. Here, he's likable with just the right mix of perviness and sketchiness, and as good as Oscar Isaac is as a brutish sort-of villain and as rockin' as that robot's figure is, it's really Gleeson who makes the story work.

This is one of those quietly lurking science fiction movies, the kind that feed a little bit on paranoia. And since only intelligent people are ever truly paranoid, it might appeal more to smart people more than people like me. I think my favorite sci-fi movies are the ones where humans use science to kill themselves. If this movie is an example of that, than this is probably a spoiler.

This is moody. It's more polished than Beyond the Black Rainbow, THX 1138, or Under the Skin, but it's got a similar tone. It's darkly mysterious and lightly suspenseful, and it worms its way into your fissures.

I might have liked this movie more if I understood its point. Narratively, it works, and I liked the sparseness with the characters and setting. Isaac gets some great lines, including some poetic waxing about Dan Aykroyd getting a blow job from a ghost. Alicia Vikander is fetching, and there's a wonderful and intelligent reverse-stripping sequence that's just about as arousing as any forward-stripping sequence I've ever seen. If this is a movie that tests whether the viewer would have sex with a robot, it gets a definitive yes from me. Of course, I probably would have had sex with a robot even before seeing this movie though.