20151227:
Overall, I liked this movie. My friend Phuong loves this movie and, if I recall correctly, my friend Josh likes it best out of movies released in 2015.
One detail I enjoyed was how the female form was adjusted to look like a robot and remain attractive.
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| Ava (Alicia Vikander) |
[20160323 Edit]
20160323:
Even barring minor plotholes, there were scenes in Ex Machina that were too awkwardly executed for my taste - whether intentional or not. As such, it's unlikely that I have as much praise for the movies as my friends Phuong or Josh.
With that being said, the movie had great special effects. In particular the constant visual effect of Ava's transparent frame is amazing.
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| Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) |
As a final note, watching it a second time revealed some of the movie's intricacies.
On 20181115, Netflix determined the movie for me as a 94% match. I decided to give the movie neither a thumbs up nor a thumbs down.
Instant Comments:
1: Lol. That flash in the face for the key card picture.
2: It's silly how such a high-tech place doesn't use retinal scanners instead of key cards. Of course that would break a critical part of the story.
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| Nathan (Oscar Isaac) |
2: Caleb has this huge scar on his back.
1: "Who you gonna call?" [Ghostbusters reference]
2: I love the mechanical wiring.
2: Oh, there's a power panel on the side of where she was sitting.
2: It's curious how Kyoko is shown sitting down in the hall with her shoes off.
2: Kyoko in the foreground.
2: I love when Eva's expression slowly changes when he tells her about the thought experiment.
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| Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) |
2: Lol. That dance routine.
2: "Everything is spinning." "It's because you're drunk." "No, it's relativity. Everything is spinning."
2: "How's that vodka tasting?"
1: Jeez. When he cuts himself to see if he's a robot...
2: That's so brutal when he breaks off her left forearm.
2: "Okay. Fucking unreal."
1: I love the transformation, though I didn't understand the changing skin color. [Phuong explained to me that they briefly showed the skin's color changing]
2: I paid close attention to the transformation and first I saw skin color of the arm change. I later also noticed how the different panels automatically melded together.
1=20151227, 2=20160323
Discussion of the Ending:
I was wondering why Eva left Caleb trapped in the room and my search led me to a Reddit thread where I found a partially related answer. In particular, the user replied to the OP, and I'm paraphrasing with my own thoughts, that we are initially wrapped around the idea Eva is designed to pass the Turing test and that the test is in regards to a machine successfully convincing a human that it is also human. The bigger point, however, is that the machine doesn't have to be or act like a human outside of the test.
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| "Who you gonna call?" |
Moving the discussion along, Nathan even tells Caleb during the movie that Eva is essentially part of an evolution of intelligence. As such, the interpretation is that her intelligence is first sufficient to appear human, but more importantly its own brand. Just like humans ultimately think differently from monkeys, Eva may ultimately think differently from humans.
Watched 20151227 (Blu-Ray)
Watched 20160323 (Amazon Prime Video)
Ex Machina (2015) Alex Garland. 108 min
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| That's a lot of Post-It Notes. |
Relevant Links:
Ex Machina (film) (Wikipedia.org)
Ex Machina (IMDb.com)
Ex Machina (RottenTomatoes.com)
