Ex Machina review – dazzling sci-fi thriller

Alex Garland’s directorial debut is full of confidence and wit, with Alicia Vikander blurring the lines between human and machine


Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Sunday 25 January 2015 09.00 GMT

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t a key moment in novelist-turned-film-maker Alex Garland’s provocative sci-fi flick, a naive young computer programmer asks the Colonel Kurtz-like creator of an impressively human artificial intelligence why he chose to sexualise his robot; to give it a gender, an attractive face, a flirtatious manner. The two-part answer is telling – first, that everything in nature is gendered, that all thoughts and actions are (on some level) driven by a reproductive urge, and no biogenetic impulse exists without a priori acknowledgment of attraction. For a machine to attain the status of “singularity” (the point at which the human and artificial become indistinguishable) it must have a sexual component. And second, hey, it’s fun – a primary pleasure that only the obtuse or uptight would wish to ignore or deny.

Graham Edwards / Ex Machina – VFX Q&A

Ex Machina – VFX Q&A

by Graham Edwards

Ever since Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, the concept of a robot with artificial intelligence has held movie audiences in thrall. Now, as the science fiction dream of AI becomes ever-more plausible in the real world, so a new generation of filmmakers has begun to explore its tantalising possibilities.

The latest addition to this recent crop of AI movies – which includes Caradog James’s The Machine and Spike Jonze’s Her – is Ex Machina. Written and directed by Alex Garland, the film introduces young computer coder Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson) into an experiment designed to establish whether sexy and cerebral android Ava (Alicia Vikander) is truly self-aware.

Vikander’s on-set performance as Ava was meticulously preserved during the post-production process. While much of her body was replaced by a digital counterpart, Vikander’s face and hands were retained throughout. The result is a seamless blend of live-action and CG animation that remains convincing in a film characterised by long takes and intricate dialogue.

The production visual effects supervisor for Ex Machina was Double Negative’s Andrew Whitehurst, who was assigned to the project for around 16 months. Under Whitehurst’s supervision, Double Negative delivered over 300 robot shots, with an additional 250 VFX shots being provided by Milk VFX, Utopia and Web FX.

Watch the trailer for Ex Machina:

How did you get involved with Ex Machina?

Double Negative were approached by DNA films and the writer/director, Alex Garland. We quickly worked out that we saw things very similarly, and that we would be able to work together.