Ex Machina
If you’re a Sci-fi fan, you won’t want to miss Ex Machina, a 2015 movie that’s available on Netflix right now. In this story, a computer coder Caleb (Domhnall Glesson) spends a week at his employer’s extraordinary mountain home to evaluate the intelligence and consciousness of a lovely AI robot Ava (Alicia Vikander). It’s a thought-provoking, eerie movie that brings up many questions about AIs (AI stands for Artificial Intelligence).
The story opens with Caleb being congratulated at work after he wins a contest to go to the remote home of his employer, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). He’s flown in by helicopter, dropped off in the middle of nowhere and told which direction to walk. He heads through the woods and finally reaches a house that could pass for a fortress. He knocks on the door, his photo is taken, and then he’s issued an ID tag. The door opens and he walks down the hallway until he comes to the kitchen, where outside the patio window he sees Nathan working out.
This opening scene gives the viewer the uncomfortable feeling that something isn’t quite right and we’re a little on edge, as is Caleb.
Caleb has to sign an agreement never to disclose what he is about to see. He wants to have a lawyer look at the agreement, but Nathan tells him he can either sign it or spend the week just hanging out. Caleb wants to see Nathan’s project, so he signs. The room he’s given is more of a windowless cell than a guest room. When he asks Nathan about it, Nathan explains his home is a research center that has high security.
As the viewer, we feel we’re trapped in this cell with Caleb. He is trying to figure out what’s going on, but Nathan only lets him know what he wants him to know.
Caleb finally gets to meet Ava, the AI robot. Her body reveals she is a robot, but her face is that of a beautiful woman. As Caleb meets with her, he begins to see her as a conscious being and is attracted to her, especially when she puts on clothes so she looks human. After interviewing Ava several times, the difference between a human and a machine begins to break down in Caleb’s mind. He even wonders if he is a machine.
The world inside the house is filmed in muted colors while outside colors are bright with a river, rocks and trees. Ava has never been outside and can only see it through the glass in her room. To Nathan she’s just one machine in a series of machines that keep evolving. But to Caleb, who has formed an emotional attachment to her, she is a being with consciousness. He wants to help her escape from Nathan.
The title Ex Machina is a play on the Greek phrase Deus Ex Machina—“God from a machine.” A machine refers to the machine that held a god over the stage in Greek drama. In the title, Deus (meaning God or deity) is left out. The movie examines the theme of humanity as it relates to God. Ava reminds of us the name Eve, for the first two humans, Adam and Eve.
Writer and director Alex Garland also uses mirrors and reflections as a device. Ava and Caleb only see each other through glass. What is real and what is a reflection?
Caleb begins to see that Nathan is manipulating him. He didn’t win a contest at all. Nathan picked him and created an AI female he would find sexually attractive. Ava also has the ability to be seductive, and she tempts Caleb as Eve tempted Adam.
Other sci-fi movies exist with AIs that are so intelligent they become dangerous to the men who invented them. 2001 One Space Odyssey was probably the first with HAL, the computer that ran the ship, eventually taking it over. Other well-known movies with AIs include the Terminator and Matrix series.
This movie is different in that the AI looks like a beautiful, innocent woman who is trapped in a glass room and serves only as part of Nathan’s research. She will be destroyed when he’s through with her for the development of a new, improved model.
The question the movie asks isn’t only: Can AIs destroy us as they become more and more advanced? (and more intelligent than us), but If AIs have consciousness, should they have rights? Or, should they be kept as slaves for their owner’s use, subject to being destroyed when their owner gets a new model? We think nothing of replacing our computer with a newer, faster, more powerful one, but what if that computer looks like a person, complete with intelligence and consciousness?
In this movie, the line between man and machine is blurred. To Caleb, Ava becomes real and his belief in Nathan (as a God-like figure who created this amazing AI) is shaken.
Ex Machina is a brilliant movie with good acting and excellent photography that will leave you thinking long after the movie is over.
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