re: Ex Machina is the best movie I’ve see in years SPOILERS

Creepy? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Greatness? Meh. 6 out of 10.

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What would you rank above it this year

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Oh, so we're ranking against recent only?

The Imitation Game
Whiplash
Mad Max (saw yesterday. It was awesome.)

I do a lot of lurking here, but I've come to the following analogy:

Carson123987 : Ex Machina : : OMLandshark : Interstellar

They both are the best films I've seen in the last several years.

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what was up with him [Nathan] seemingly not picking up the quote references and botching the "history of gods"?

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Anybody got any ideas on this?

It is to show his arrogance. He made himself out to be a god with one of those quotes.

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Mad max and Whiplash were phenomenal

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thinking of going see mad max tomorrow. it's really that good? I didn't expect much but it's killing it on RT.

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Haven't seen imitation game

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you need to. I have whiplash and imitation game as 1a and 1b from last year's crop


eta: also downloading ex machina right now. can't wait to watch it tonight

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what was up with him [Nathan] seemingly not picking up the quote references and botching the "history of gods"?

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I think Nathan knew the "through the looking glass" reference. He was pretending not to, just being a bit dry. I think he was joking again when he pretended to have misheard Caleb's "history of gods" comment, but that joke was calculated. Nathan wanted Caleb to think he was conceited (which he actually is IMO*).

The fact that Caleb doesn't recognize Nathan was kidding with him in either instance highlights his gullibility. If Caleb is as trusting and literal-minded as that, Nathan (and Ava) probably won't have too much trouble manipulating him. It also contrasts him with Nathan. (Caleb is Nathan's foil.) Caleb wanted to make sure Nathan didn't think Carol's phrase was his. He isn't conceited.

Nathan's "like a god" joke is similar to the one he told at dinner -- when he said he had the guys who installed his power system killed. Caleb hesitated a moment when Nathan said it, unsure, but then Nathan smiled and Caleb caught on. However, since that joke came soon after Nathan lashed out at Kyoko for spilling wine, another opportune charade on Nathan's part, it will have fed Caleb's subconscious. It will have led him (and the audience) into thinking Nathan is dangerous and a threat to Ava, as Nathan (and Garland) intended it to. (And Nathan actually is a threat, though IMO he pretends to himself that he isn't by pretending that he is, if that makes any sense.)


*Nathan is one confused guy. ("Everything is spinning!") He's a lot like Hamlet, as I recall him. Here's part of what a character in one of my favorite movies, The Ninth Configuration, says about Hamlet:

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Some Shakespearean scholars say that when Hamlet is pretending to be crazy, he really is... Other Shakespearean scholars say that when Hamlet is pretending to be nuts, he really isn't..."

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Here's something Garland has said about Nathan. The bold bit is how I see him now:

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The game that [Nathan] is playing is: are you seeing [Nathan] or are you seeing a predatory misogynistic, implicitly violent, bullying alpha male to be something from which this machine needs to be rescued for the process of this experiment? Then there's a secondary question: is he pretending to be what he actually is? Which we often do, we caricature the thing about ourselves that does exist.

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I tell ya, Ex Machina might not be the best film I've seen since No Country but it's up there. So very well conceived and executed. The more I think about it the more I appreciate it. And the writing...

I mentioned Hamlet. There's this great moment when Nathan is revealing his supposed true test, which is reminiscent of Hamlet's Mousetrap play. Behind Nathan is some picture with two faces, or a face and a mask, not sure. A decorative bronze mask is shown as well, kinda Grecian. Alongside that is the skull of a primitive human. To me the skull alludes to Nathan's fear of releasing Ava and the possible devastating consequences of it. It also hints at Hamlet and thus to Nathan's play-acting.

Anyway, an air of theater permeates the whole scene. As they're talking, Caleb and Nathan suddenly lapse into a verse drama technique whereby two characters share the same line of dialogue, alternating clauses:

CALEB:
.................You selected me based on my search engine inputs
NATHAN:
...................They showed a good kid
CALEB:
.....................With no family
NATHAN:
.......................With a moral compass
CALEB:
.........................And no girlfriend

Thought that was a really nice touch.

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Carson123987 : Ex Machina : : OMLandshark : Interstellar

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I've been catching up on the thread, and I was gonna post exactly this, so I'm glad you beat me to it.

Carson is overhyping the frick out of this movie (you've seen it three times in theaters already? Come on, man ), but that being said, it's still very good. I watched it last night (finally), and liked it. It's nothing groundbreaking really, but it is very well done, and it a visually gorgeous movie (I now want to stay in the hotel there; the pics in the link posted a couple pages back are incredible).

One thing I liked about it was they just jumped right into things. We see Caleb win something, and then five minutes into the film, Nathan is telling him he created AI and wants him to test it. No filler, no background...we just jump into it. That was cool.

Also liked how simplistic the movie was. Not a lot going on outside of dialigue and emotion.

Thought it was well-acted all around. Also thought the score was noticeably great at certain points.

As for the actual plot, I thought it was good, not great. I did like the ending, although I'm not sure why people think Ava left Caleb there to die. Nathan clearly explained that the power surges only lasted a short time and that the power (generators) corrected themselves and things got back to normal shortly. And we know that Caleb hacked the system to make the doors unlocked. So IMO, once Ava locks him in the room and makes her escape, Caleb gets out fairly easily. The key is that she's already gone by then.

As for the AI aspect of it, she clearly fails the Turing Test IMO. She knows she is AI, and a robot, and she doesn't truly have the capability of emotion like humans do. It's why her leaving Caleb at the end wasn't so much cold-blooded and mean as it was indifference...just a computer doing what it had to do to escape out into the world, and nothing more (since she lacked true emotion). And as much as I like the allegory from Caleb about the lady in the black and white room, I think that was more just an analogy to the situation than to mean Ava actually "becomes human" once she goes outside into the world, because even if her experiencing the outside world can give her a better understanding of humans and emotion, she still isn't capable of truly feeling them.

I'll agree with some of the gripes in this thread...things like faulty security at a house that technologically advanced, and the fact that a mid-level "average" coder could hack it so easily; the helicopter pilot (although that doesn't really bother me); etc. But all in all, the movie is really well-done.

Also, one thing that stood out to me was how fast it went by. I was watching and it felt like it had been on for an hour or less when the ending came around. That's pretty good IMO, especially considering how there was little action or anything going on.

Finally, as weird as the whole "closet of robot bodies" thing was, they aren't really people (or animals), so it wasn't as creepy to me as the movie tried to make it. And if I was Nathan, I'd be banging those things all day, every day.

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One thing I liked about it was they just jumped right into things. We see Caleb win something, and then five minutes into the film, Nathan is telling him he created AI and wants him to test it. No filler, no background...we just jump into it. That was cool.

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Likewise. Then again the plot/premise didn't require much development.

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As for the actual plot, I thought it was good, not great. I did like the ending, although I'm not sure why people think Ava left Caleb there to die. Nathan clearly explained that the power surges only lasted a short time and that the power (generators) corrected themselves and things got back to normal shortly. And we know that Caleb hacked the system to make the doors unlocked. So IMO, once Ava locks him in the room and makes her escape, Caleb gets out fairly easily. The key is that she's already gone by then.

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I like to think that was the case but Calebs desperation seemed to suggest impending doom but most of that could been his realization that Ava had zero emotional attachment.

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As for the AI aspect of it, she clearly fails the Turing Test IMO. She knows she is AI, and a robot, and she doesn't truly have the capability of emotion like humans do. It's why her leaving Caleb at the end wasn't so much cold-blooded and mean as it was indifference...just a computer doing what it had to do to escape out into the world, and nothing more (since she lacked true emotion).

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Yep, obviously successful AI would have to simulate sincere love and compassion and her actions at the end revealed that Ava failed that aspect of human emulation.