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Don't fence me in...Or build me a women?? Spoilers...

Posted by Mark Man (A) on April 25, 2015 at 10:09:23

In Reply to: 'Ex Machina': "Women....what do they want?" posted by Billy Wonka on April 24, 2015 at 15:00:49:

Let's get this out of the way first, Alicia Vikander, Ava is one sexy machine...Her performance as Ava is layered, nuanced and spot on...she applies the slow play, of the reveal of what do AI's really want???

Her sense of wonder, natural curiosity dipped in sexual innocence with flashes of superior intelligence and hidden feminine wiles...She is playing Chess and the dudes are playing Checkers...

Spoilers start here...

For some unknown reason, I was kind of hyper vigilant looking for plot clues and foreshadowing...there are plenty...The Key Cards play into getting ALL access throughout the compound...I knew Caleb would end up with Nathan's key card...

When Kyoko, Asian house frau, aka concubine, shows up as a non-speaking role that is there to serve...I immediately thought she was AI...no surprise here...

Oscar Isaac, Nathan, is a combination of what "we" like to think are the traits of the omnipresent internet billionaire CEO's...inventor of the worlds biggest search engine, all fed back to his lair...adding to his God syndrome...there is a topical subplot of all our internet activities being fed to "him"...we are what we search...no milk with these cookies...personal privacy is marketing fuel...duh...

Isaac's performance is good, not great...he does have that good creep factor...ego of any good CEO on steroids...it is apparent early on in the script, things may not be as they appear...almost too much so...starting with the Dr. Evil lair...

Too much of the movie is spent showing how spectacular his compound and lair is...the great outdoors plays a ying /yang role to contrast sleek modern concrete lair...this whole movie could have been done as a 3 set play...and just as satisfying...the pace and plot were enough for me...

Domhnall Gleeson, Caleb, with his Richie Cunningham aw-shucks disposition, turns in a really really good performance...not great, but almost...as the contest winner, not, he is very intelligent, genuine with too much morality for his own good...which becomes his downfall...Ava recognizes this in him immediately and starts manipulating him during the first session...the use of the power outages to create real moments between Ava and Caleb seemed staged from the beginning by Nathan...I never really believed that when the lights went off Nathan wasn't watching...I guessed Ava was the VCR, just playing things back for him...I was wrong...but he still watched...

As Caleb is piecing things together, he does not have the skills to deceive on the level of the Ava and Nathan...he gets worked over for being nice...when he gets left behind by Ava, with no hint of empathy or remorse by her, he is genuinely surprised...I was not.

I heard a new term in this movie..."your Porn Profile"...which Caleb figures out Ava was based...well done Caleb, better done Nathan...build me a woman base on the Porn viewing preferences...golf clap...I will take Ava to-go...spark plugs and all...

This movie, IMHO, had potential to be better...I would have liked to explore lengthier sessions between Caleb and Ava...those were all really great scenes...for once I felt this movie could have been 20 minutes longer in developing Ava, (she is fascinating and easy on the eyes) and more character development of Nathan and his motives...

This is 3.95 stars out of 5...almost 4 stars...I do recommend seeing this movie in a theater for its ambience and watching a robot put on clothes and getting sexier with each piece of clothing she puts on...go figure...

Great review BW...I concur, nice to have a think piece instead of too furious with a side of love...this is the type of Sci-fi I really enjoy...more Gatacca and Code 46 like...lo-tech morality driven...
Looking forward to see what others thought of this movie...
Thanks
Mark

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