Ex Machina

TubEfingers

TubEfingers

Well-known member
First film I've really enjoyed at the cinema for a while, reminded me of theatre due to the small cast and few locations.
Had great performances, fully developed characters and a fairly thought provoking witty script - the fx work on the girl was also really good.
I don't tend to watch films from a cameraman's perspective, but some of the cinematography took me out of the story, very grainy high iso digital look and soft focus in some places - other than that I'd highly recommend it.

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Yeah highly recommended Kurt, hope you get to enjoy it where you are, saw Chappie on your list - curious to see how thats turned out, hopefully the directors back to the same form as on District 9, didn't enjoy Elysium on the whole
 
Finally caught Ex Machina. Really well done - thoughtful, thriller. The whole concept, can a machine actually be alive, conscious, or is it just a simulation of consciousness? Every bit of the story serves that concept.
 
bad casting imo. Creator should've been older, in this case cliche works. bad boy Geppetto and A.I. tragedy stories are a bit predictable for the films rhythm. protagonist was annoying to watch. I think this film tried to focus more on art direction more than the script. just my 2 cents
 
I saw it at my local theater.

I was involved in the story and was intrigued until the very end...although thought there were some easy/quick plot points that I didnt find particularly satisfying. I agree that art direction was strong. And the version of the film I saw did have some super grainy shots...to the point that I thought I saw a bad copy. Other folks with whom I talked about it did not notice, but they are not in the film/video world. I wanted to see it at another theater, just to see if indeed it was a bad version.

But overall, I enjoyed it!
 
Well-done.

I think Oscar Isaac is going to be another chameleon, like Gary Oldman was or Mark Strong is now. Had no idea it was him -- I would have sworn I was watching Jake Johnson the whole time.

The plot pretty much contradicted itself at the end, but overall, it was definitely a score.
 
I love this movie. I think it is one of the best sci-fi films to come out in a long while. The story and cinematography were spot on as well as the special effects.
 
I really like the casting of Oscar Isaacs here.

He's a prodigy who is bored of everything to the point of setting up things as they are in the movie.

Smart and bored is a dangerous combination.

I agree it wouldn't hurt to have him older/further along in his life with more experience and hindsight, but I took the character as brilliant if not a bit niave and it's made clear that he's been a huge influence in the tech world for a long time now.



I loved the movie, think it was one of the best I saw last year.

I just kept going 'why wouldn't you put an off button on this thing?"
 
I thought it was kinda meh. Great fx, good twist but some major plot holes and a poor denouement more appropriate to a horror movie. A good hook gets your audience to start watching, narrative drive keeps your audience watching but a good denouement will make your audience tell their friends to watch it.
biggest plot hole was the key card set up. A power failure means you are locked in with no manual way to get out from an isolated compound, and power outages are frequent? Not a system some genius programmer would set up. Security that locks out the bad guys sure but security that licks you in during a power outage, no.
some of the dialogue seemed directed at the audience rather than necessary for the characters, just so the director could flesh out the concept.
also agree wth home star , no off switch? And your back up plan if it gets out is a barbell?
the genius creator wasn't a believable character he just seems like an eccentric drunk not some one that could design Eva . His throw away line of I could tell you how I did it but that's not what this is about is not satisfying.
compare that to iron man and his first prototype that almost kills him, he's just a more organic believable character.
it did keep me watching just not a satisfying ending.
 
It was - as so often these days - "OK". What I would have wanted from this film, given the premise is one thing: MORE. More of everything - more tension, more knife-edge situations, sharper stronger dilemmas, more heart-wrenching choices, deeper conundrums, harder decisions. Given the possibilities inherent in the premise, I thought what they got out of it was underpowered. I put it down to weak writing. Strong direction, good acting (especially Vikander), nice art direction, good technically... all undermined by weak writing. It deserved better. I didn't feel robbed of my time - it was OK. But it felt like another wasted opportunity.
 
OldCorpse said:
It was - as so often these days - "OK". What I would have wanted from this film, given the premise is one thing: MORE. More of everything - more tension, more knife-edge situations, sharper stronger dilemmas, more heart-wrenching choices, deeper conundrums, harder decisions. Given the possibilities inherent in the premise, I thought what they got out of it was underpowered. I put it down to weak writing. Strong direction, good acting (especially Vikander), nice art direction, good technically... all undermined by weak writing. It deserved better. I didn't feel robbed of my time - it was OK. But it felt like another wasted opportunity.
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Sorry, but in the interests of balance, I can't pass without responding to these comments. What you're criticising here is actually what made the film so good for me; restraint. A cool, intelligent, restrained, visually interesting telling of a solid, engaging story. Weak writing? I think not.
 
OldCorpse said:
It was - as so often these days - "OK". What I would have wanted from this film, given the premise is one thing: MORE. More of everything - more tension, more knife-edge situations, sharper stronger dilemmas, more heart-wrenching choices, deeper conundrums, harder decisions. Given the possibilities inherent in the premise, I thought what they got out of it was underpowered. I put it down to weak writing. Strong direction, good acting (especially Vikander), nice art direction, good technically... all undermined by weak writing. It deserved better. I didn't feel robbed of my time - it was OK. But it felt like another wasted opportunity.
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I get what norvan5 is saying, but I have to agree with OldCorpse here. There needed to be more sense of danger and urgency. Ava needed to present as much more of a prisoner, something dark and sinister going on that made her desperate and in need of 'saving'.

And she needed to be more 'human'. After all, that was supposed to be the point, right? She gave all the right answers, but seemed to lack a sense of being present and real. Like intellect with no emotion. Sure, there were some faint attempts at showing she had more than intellect, but they weren't really enough for me. I always found her fascinating, but never connected with her on an emotional level enough to make me fear for her and desperately want her to survive. I was much more invested in Jay than in Ava.

And yeah, the idea of all the doors locking automatically and trapping you inside during a power failure was silly and obviously contrived to make the ending work. It wasn't smart.

Everything technical about the movie was dead-on excellent. But the script was weak.
 
I really enjoyed the film on most fronts, not least for introducing me to Alicia Vikander (who's just been superb in everything I've seen so far). My biggest gripe with the film was simply that it wasted a terrific opportunity to explore Asimov's three laws of robotics - which could have provided a much more interesting conclusion than the one we got.
 
I'll disagree about the doors... When designing a structure to hold a possibly dangerous "thing" I would want the doors to fail secure (locked). You don't want the thing to be able to get out from a simple power failure.

Overall I was certainly entertained, so in that light I would say it was worth producing.

As to the three laws, it's been done to death with some better than others.

There was another robot movie I recently watched on Netflix, wish I could remember the title right now, it was pretty well flipped on it's side with a small twist that I didn't completely predict. I'll have to look it up in my history. It also entertained me for the entire duration which again is the goal of anything in the fiction realm.
 
Greg_E said:
I'll disagree about the doors... When designing a structure to hold a possibly dangerous "thing" I would want the doors to fail secure (locked). You don't want the thing to be able to get out from a simple power failure.

Overall I was certainly entertained, so in that light I would say it was worth producing.

As to the three laws, it's been done to death with some better than others.

There was another robot movie I recently watched on Netflix, wish I could remember the title right now, it was pretty well flipped on it's side with a small twist that I didn't completely predict. I'll have to look it up in my history. It also entertained me for the entire duration which again is the goal of anything in the fiction realm.
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Well it seems to me that a guy smart enough to build a self-aware robot could have come up with a better solution for containing it than trapping himself and everyone else inside the house with it. He might find himself locked in the same room with the robot during a power failure.

I also thought the idea of the key cards to get access to various places was underwhelming. That's very 20th century. It seems he could have developed some kind of biometric to perform that same function, which would also have helped in keeping Ava isolated. In fact, since Ava is a robot, it would be fairly easy to key her internal workings to an external signal -- when the power goes out, that signal stops and she shuts down until the power is restored. That's what I would do.

And what? This super-tech guy doesn't have a diesel generator that automatically kicks in when the power fails? Battery backup? Solar? He's got a waterfall nearby that looks like it's a mile high -- can't he put a waterwheel on it and generate his own power?

These are all things that a good screenwriter should have thought of and worked out beforehand. It's just a lot of convenient flaws designed to facilitate his pre-determined ending. In my opinion.

On a related note, I was watching an episode of a British detective series last night. A crime had occurred and hotel surveillance video had captured the face of a suspect. In one scene, the detective handed a print of that suspect's face to a man and asked if he could identify the suspect. The man said, "It's a terrible photo. I can't really see him very well." But we saw the photo as the detective handed it to him, and it wasn't bad at all. If the man knew the suspect, he could easily have identified him. If you're going to have a character say the words "it's a terrible photo", then you'd better SHOW a terrible photo.

One more related note. Was watching an old episode of the original "X-Files". A kid describes a killer to a sketch artist, who does a drawing. A cop sees the drawing and says it's another cop, who was killed 9 years before. Mulder and Scully get an 8x10 photo of the dead cop, which was (of course) some actor's headshot. Then they go to the home of the dead cop's former partner. When he comes to the door, Mulder sticks the DRAWING out and says, "Do you know this man?" So tell me.....why didn't he stick the PHOTO out instead? He had it with him. He knew who the guy was supposed to be, and knew that this fellow knew him. So why show him a drawing? (Nevermind that the drawing was so generic it could probably have been any one of a thousand people, so why assume it was the dead cop from 9 years before?)

The guy at the door, when asked, responded "Yeah, that's [whatever the dead cop's name was]." Really? How do you know that? It could just be someone who resembled the dead cop. Why would you assume it was him?

I hate sloppiness in productions. Can you tell? :-)
 
Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I just watched Ex Machina for the second time today.

Man, it was really compelling cinematography. I also think the art direction and acting was strong as well.

But man, Rob Hardy really did a stellar job. The combo of the F65 with the re-housed Cooke Speed Panchro anamorphics really felt organic and natural--sorry for the vague terms. Really one of the best implementations of the F65, in my opinion. I was scoping out a set of vintage super speeds for a new project, but I might have to test out some speed panchros as well.

The coverage for scenes, along with the editing, really brought out the emotional sub-text in the script. And the use of reflections throughout was really strong.
 
abreu-canedo said:
Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I just watched Ex Machina for the second time today.

Man, it was really compelling cinematography. I also think the art direction and acting was strong as well.

But man, Rob Hardy really did a stellar job. The combo of the F65 with the re-housed Cooke Speed Panchro anamorphics really felt organic and natural--sorry for the vague terms. Really one of the best implementations of the F65, in my opinion. I was scoping out a set of vintage super speeds for a new project, but I might have to test out some speed panchros as well.

The coverage for scenes, along with the editing, really brought out the emotional sub-text in the script. And the use of reflections throughout was really strong.
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I'll dive into an old thread with you. Ex Machina is definitely a multi-viewings movie for me as well. Was really into when I saw it at BAM. Then again projected at home. Refined, subtle craftsmanship - my experience of it deepens with multiple viewings. I'll be studying it for a long time. Exquisitely well-crafted.

And as you mentioned, very skillful use of reflections - particularly as the related to and justified within the narrative structure.
 
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