Artificial Intelligence has always been a popular trope in science fiction. Sci-fi movies featuring A.I. have been coming out for decades now, from
Metropolis to
2001 to
Blade Runner to
Star Wars... So what makes
Ex Machina feel so fresh?
Ex Machina is set in the 'near future' (it never explicitly says what year it is, but what we're shown of this world looks a lot like our own) when the protagonist, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson)wins some kind of contest that earns him a week with the CEO of the company he works for. He's flown via helicopter to the remote estate of Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) who, after having him to sign a NDA of course, reveals why he brought him there.
He thinks he's created Artificial Intelligence, and he needs someone to complete a Turing test to determine whether what he created is truly human. T
he Turing test is the definitive test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. A human evaluator (in this case Nathan) judges 'natural' conversations between a human (Caleb) and a machine (Ava) that is designed to generate
human-like responses.
The rest of the film is heady, but smart science fiction dealing with issues of ethics and technology, evolution and the role of humans on earth in the distant future. It's great sic-fi, and an exciting, well-paced film to boot. I would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in science, or fiction, or tense and engaging movies.
