When it comes to low-key sci-fi thrillers it doesn’t get much more intense than the genre defining, Ex Machina DVD, which manages to draw you in with the faint promise of scientific innovation, before crushing you in the vice of Oppenheimer’s quote, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”. While the concept has been pursued many times in the past, usually in more action packed movies like Blade Runner, Terminator Genisys and Universal Soldier, Alex Garland’s directorial debut manages to carve a very convincing niche for itself.
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download on the 1st June 2015 in the UK, with a slightly later release in North America on the 14th June 2015. You can see more about the film with the official website at https://exmachina-movie.com/.
Ex Machina is a smart and stylish twist on the artificial intelligence storyline with a very claustrophobic, isolated and unnerving setting. It sees a young code writer named Caleb winning a lottery in work to spend a week with his billionaire boss, Nathan, at his hideaway retreat in the country. There he finds that he’s been flown in to conduct a Turing Test on a pretty robot called Ava, who is the culmination of Nathan’s efforts in artificial intelligence.
It makes for palpable tension as the situation starts to unwind and everyone’s motives and methods start to become clear. It sets up a genuinely enthralling ending that leaves you second guessing right the way up to the closing credits.
There are a couple of sections of the film that feel like they’ve perhaps been pitched a little too keenly at creating a sense of unease as they try a little too hard to set up the tension of the thriller. The worst of these has got to be the flash unnecessary flash at the doorway to Nathan’s subterranean . We also struggle to buy into the ability of a Google-like search engine algorithm being the key to delivering life-like AI, but any of the negatives do little to take away from the power of the movie and the concept that sits behind it.
The cast is honed to a fine knife-edge throughout the film with strong performances from all to deliver a convincing story of frightening technological breakthrough. While both Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), who plays Caleb, and Oscar Isaacs (also in Star Wars: The Force Awakens), who plays Nathan, are very strong in their respective roles, Ex Machina wins you over thanks to the sheer brilliance of Alicia Vikander (The Light Between Oceans) as she plays the inquisitive, beautiful, trapped and endangered robot Ava to perfection.
Alex Garland has done a very good job of getting the very best out of his stars and the film continues to add to the the reputation he’s getting for being behind some of the most impressive low budget sci-fi movies of the last few years. Having written 28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go and Dredd previously, he can now add skills behind the camera to his list of achievements.
Considering the more humble Film 4 and DNA Films origins of Ex Machina, they’ve still managed to fine tune some very futuristic looking special effects to bring Ava to life. Instead of simply having a human body with hair, the team were clearly keen to make it evident that she is a robot, which fits in with the plot around Nathan setting a test for his most impressive creation. The robotic element comes in the form of clear arms, legs and mid-section, which show the circuitry and connectors beneath her exterior and they look about as real as though the story were true, which is about as good as it gets for CGI effects like this. Check out the image above to see what we mean.
The set is equally well designed, conveying at once the genius, power, wealth and voyeuristic dominion of Nathan, the isolation and entrapment of Ava and Caleb and the beauty of life. Everything on the screen is stylish and slick with a beautiful green forest and ice pack surrounding and Nathan’s super cool pad out in the middle of nowhere.
Ex Machine is a slowly coiling constriction of a film that loses little as it makes the transition from the big screen to DVD, Blu-ray and digital download. If there’s any part of you that likes science fiction or psychological thrillers then there’s more than enough to keep you entertained while you watch the movie and you’ll end up thinking about if for a long while afterwards as you ponder the questions it poses about scientific discovery and the direction of artificial intelligence.
Ex Machina DVD review: 4.4/5
Ex-Machina DVD special features
The DVD comes with a few cool extras looking at everything from the story, the cast, designing the unconventional setting, creating Ava, the robot woman at the centre of the story, and more on the Turing Test, which sets out a guideline to test AI.
Age rating
The Ex-Machina DVD has been given an age rating of 15 by the British Board of Film Classification with strong language, bloody violence and sex references.
