Ex Machina

What makes humans, human? What is the essence of humanity that sets man apart from all other creatures? Ex Machina, an intellectually stimulating, visually captivating, and psychologically disturbing sci-fi thriller, provides few answers but leaves your mind crackling and popping.

Artificial intelligence is a familiar theme in cinema, but few films have philosophized and dramatized the battle of wills between man and machine as powerfully and hauntingly as Ex Machina (rated R for nudity, language, sexual references, and some violence) has.

Programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a weeklong vacation at the home office of his boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac), CEO of a world-domineering tech company. An obsessive recluse, Nathan lives with one personal assistant (Sonoya Mizuno) in a semi-subterranean lab tucked between vast ice sheets and pristine mountains. Caleb soon discovers that he’s really there to evaluate Nathan’s top-secret pet project Ava (Alicia Vikander), a model-figured, honey-eyed female android who lives locked up in a glass box. Ava can talk wittily, look shy, and express empathy, but it’s up to Caleb to determine if this seemingly flesh-and-blood robot has true human consciousness—whatever that is.

“If you’ve built a conscientious machine, that’s not the history of man—it’s the history of gods!” Caleb gasps in awe, which Nathan accepts as confirmation of his godhood. They later discuss the role of gender and sexuality in human nature, but completely miss another uniquely human characteristic: man’s fallen nature—the unlearned ability to lie, cheat, manipulate, and betray.

Even somebody as insanely smart as Nathan is not God—a fact reinforced by his drunken stupors and hubris but also by his failure to realize that a human is more than the molecular components that make him tick.

Essentially, Nathan has created humanity 2.0 after his own sinful image—a soulless being that displays a complex and sophisticated range of human-like impulses and desires. Ava can no doubt think and feel, but the greater question is: What is she thinking and feeling?