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Thought this deserved its own post since we have some hard sci-fi fans here.

My mini-review: Caleb, a programmer at a infotech company modeled after Google, wins a contest to spend a week with the company's eccentric genius founder at his isolated compound; when he arrives he learns that he has been chosen to help test his new robot to determine whether it possesses true consciousness. Artificial intelligence is the new science fiction frontier; thoughtful yet thrilling, EX MACHINA provides tense, mystery-based competition to 2013's melancholy romance HER as the best recent example of the genre. 4.5/5.

*I am very stingy in giving out 5/5's, reserving them for true classics that stand the test of time, maybe one or two movies a year. I almost never award a movie 5/5 on a single viewing or without thinking on it for a while. That said, I suspect may upgrade this to 5/5 by the year's end.
*The acting here is universally great, but Oscar Isaac's Nathan is the best. He oozes arrogance and insincerity from every pore and you're never sure how far you can trust him. The fact that he builds his robots as hot women is somewhat disturbing.
*Alicia Vikander is hot as hell and more importantly does a great job showing just a flicker of emotion to keep you guessing whether she really has feelings or not.
*The twists are well-done, not too overplayed but not too easy to guess.
*I wasn't sure about the ending at first but I left the theater thinking about exactly the issues the writer wanted, which means it was a success.
*I want to live in Nathan's compound. Looks like it must cover several square miles in Alaska and was designed by Stanley Kubrick's ghost.

Ex Machina - Official Trailer (2015) [HD] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8#ws)

I don't think the trailer does it justice. Recommended for true sci-fi fans. No special effects to speak of, so I think it will probably translate well to the small screen if you can't get out to see it.

Thanks for this review.

We really like "thinker" sci fi, and unfortunately find them harder find these days.  Even harder, however, is finding them not Rated R.

I looked at the imdb "Parent's Guide" page, and note that the R rating seems mostly for f-bombs. 

Aggravating nonsense aside (for the makers thinking they have to include this to make a movie interesting), other than language, would you say it's a soft-R or hard-R?

How would it compare to, say THE MATRIX, for viewing by young people? My children really dug THE MATRIX and they also like the first two TERMINATOR movies for reference on the "violence" and "disturbing" categories.  The TERMINATOR movies got a little high on the disturbing meter a few times, but overall (and with time) they've been okay.

As I said, we like "thinker" movies quite a bit.  If the deeper aspects outweigh the other (sensationalist aspects), we might give it a go.  It looks very interesting.  We've watched quite a few AI documentaries recently, so it would be cool to compare that to the fictional, speculative take.

There is a lot of female robot nudity, and a little bloody violence at the end. I wouldn't say the language was really very bad (at least I didn't notice it). There is a lot of drinking (Nathan is a functional alcoholic), which didn't used to be a factor in rating a movie but seems to be these days. I'd say "mid-R" rather than "soft" or "hard" R.

Cool.  Thanks.  We'll have to watch for it to come to Amazon Instant.

I've never had such a powerful emotional response to a science fiction movie before. It starts out intriguing and smart, starts to make you uneasy in subtle ways, then punches you in the gut over and over. The last 20 minutes were both horrific and hypnotic, it was really something else. Wow, who thought you could do body-horror with robots?

The little details of the robotics, such as Ava not exhaling when she speaks or having any rise and fall to her shoulders, along with the gender-neutral walking stride and sounds of the motors and actuators working as she moved, really give the performance life. (ha-ha)

Gonna have to check this one out.

If only to see what "female robot nudity" means.

(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/nonciclopedia/images/1/1b/Playbot.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081103133254)

This was a brilliant science fiction film!  It would make a great double feature with CHAPPIE.
Both make you think hard about what it means to be human. 
The acting was top notch and the storyline was carefully drawn.
The end was truly awesome!  5/5

 :buggedout: :teddyr: :teddyr:

Watched this with coffee in the morning and was captivated straight away. Beautiful story and great FX. One of those films you think about long after watching it. Bravo 8/10

Finally got around to seeing this.

I loved it: the story and execution both.

Saw a lot of parallels with BLADE RUNNER, of course, and even dug the BR quotes in there when Ava was questioning Caleb.

Read some reviews and suchlike after watching where people did not like the ending.  I have to ask "Why?"  I loved it, and thought it was the perfect ending for THIS film.  Anything else would have been a cop-out and lazy.  And, nowhere NEAR as hard hitting and thought provoking.

Pace wise it was a bit slow (not a problem for me, but the 10 year old likes his movies more actioney) and the overuse of the f word was a distraction.  My children spent too much effort counting them rather and thus being taken out of the movie.  What a shame. The language adds nothing to the story; I got Nathan was "edgy" from his other characterizations.


***POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW***













I loved how unemotional expression Ava had when stabbing Nathan...it was surreal.  It was not a typical movie psycho unemotional.  It was...nothing.  It was almost like she was looking at him thinking about turning him off or something.  Man, what a great acting job there.