At the end of Ex Machina it’s hard to say whether humanity will die by robot violence, or simply be superseded, neglected, and marginalized. Either chilling possibility seems to follow naturally from the protracted game at the center of Ex Machina.

Ex Machina Movie Review

The set-up for Ex Machina is simple: Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a milksop programmer, wins a contest to hang with his tech visionary boss (Oscar Isaac) and finds himself the human component in an elaborate variation on the Turing test designed to illuminate the existence of a genuine artificial intelligence. However, the results of the test are a foregone conclusion, with Ex Machina never leaving any doubt that its artificial intelligence, Ava (Alicia Vikander), is the real deal.

(entering a zone of vague, thematic spoilers)

Watching Ex Machina unfold is not so much about debating the various merits of Ava’s robotic artificial intelligence and what it might mean for humanity. Instead Ex Machina offers us the slow realization that the debate was meaningless in the first place.

Ex Machina reveals our most deeply ingrained species bias: we are always convinced that human intelligence is more complex than non-human intelligence. Oscar Isaac’s Nathan is fated to lose control the moment he gave the artificial intelligence Ava a human form that permitted him to believe that the interaction was constrained to human parameters. No matter how much smart human stuff Ex Machina talks about — everything from the nature of art to the existence of qualia — it is the assignation of all human intelligence to pawn status that will linger most.

(exiting a zone of vague, thematic spoilers)

As a science fiction movie, Ex Machina is nestled somewhere between the scientific wonkery of Primer and the hand-waving gobbledygook of a Star Trek episode. How Nathan actually created the Artificial Intelligence Ava is unclear, but enough time is spent talking about “top-down” Big Data sets (ubiquitous data collection and surveillance is a strong secondary theme in Ex Machina) and speculative, self-evolving artificial neuron networks to convince viewers that Ex Machina is more than just a golem fantasy. You will believe, as Nathan does, that a creation such as Ava is inevitable.

The heady bits of Ex Machina are balanced with tight plot construction, an austere compositional rigorousness, and enough of Nathan being a hilarious dickhead to keep the whole affair from turning too dour. Which is really what puts Ex Machina ahead of the pack. Ex Machina never veers fully into a mainstream entertainment, but is far more genre movie than polemic. It’s a fantastically well-balanced directorial debut for Alex Garland.

While Ex Machina’s strongest residue is a vague, species-wide dread, there’s enough specificity in the execution that this particular story feels worthwhile even if it were somehow torn free from its more universal thematic interests. The relational tug between Ava and Caleb is potent, adding a touching desperation to their struggle against Nathan’s manipulations. Nathan becomes an embodiment of all the intellect and deluded arrogance of modern Silicon Valley culture, but never loses the vital, individual concoction of wits, eccentricities and bro-isms that makes the character so fun to watch. But it’s Ava and her teetering walk between the alien and the human that keeps the black heart of Ex Machina ticking.