Ex_Machina Review

Gripping, intense and elegant. Ex_Machina is one of those films where it's better going in knowing nothing at all, as even just the tiniest hint or detail could spoil the entire film. Despite a slow start, something common among thrillers, the pace picks up without you even realising and suddenly an overwhelming number of twists and turns are thrown at you with an ending that completely throws you off guard, even when it's being played out clearly in front of you you still won't believe it. I guarantee you will spend the rest of your day questioning the entire thing and to be honest, just life itself, it really does mess with your head. Director and screenwriter Alex Garland somehow managed to successfully execute a simple storyline that deals with such complex issues, something he managed to balance effectively. The concept for the film revolves around the Turing experiment, an experiment named after Alan Turing following his suggestion that one day machines could display signs of artificial intelligence similar to actions displayed by humans. It's an idea that many different people have explored or considered. A part of us thinks it could be amazing but at the same a part of us can't ignore the darker aspect to it. If you've ever seen the Channel 4 sci-fi drama series Humans, you'll definitely know what i mean by this. This film expertly deals with the scientific nature of the experiment, without boring those of us who think of science as a whole different language, and playing it out for us on screen. For many of us this will be the closest insight into this experiment we'll ever get, even if it just through fiction that's still pretty damn exciting.  



The film follows through the eyes of Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a computer programmer, on his trip to a secluded estate, home to Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) the billionaire owner of the company Caleb works for. Caleb has been picked after winning a competition within the company that picked somebody out randomly. But was it actually randomly generated at all? That's something you can decide for yourself. Caleb is under the impression that he will be spending the week with Nathan, a man who he has great respect for, but little does he know that he has been brought there to take part in the Turing experiment. Nathan has created an AI called Ava (Alicia Vikander), giving the machine a gender, a pretty face and a flirty nature. All of these characteristics combined make it almost impossible for Caleb not to fall for her to some extent. Ava has already passed a simple Turing test that explores whether she can think for herself. Over a series of sessions, Caleb is tested on whether he believes Ava is capable of having a conscious mind that has the ability to develop feelings towards others and if he is able to relate to her as though she was a human not a machine.

The cast features three well-known stars who have played parts in other successful films with both Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac starring in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Alicia Vikander starring in the Academy Award winning film The Danish Girl. In my opinion the cast was picked perfectly, featuring stars with relative fame who haven't been pigeonholed by previous roles. Vikander definitely deserves a lot of praise for her role after her exquisite representation of a robot. Without a doubt, her role was definitely one that was hard to perfect, having to display both robotic and human characteristics and mannerisms to the extent where even the audience are left questioning whether she is more human or robot along with Caleb. Gleeson fits the nerdy, almost loner yet happy type of character that Caleb is that you can't help but feel bad for, especially after he confides in Ava telling her about the death of his parents when he was a teenager. However, as good as the characters are it would be hard to say that as an audience member you personally like any of them. Nathan gives off the impression that he is very manipulative and maybe isn't being completely truthful about the nature of the experiment, Ava is an AI who makes us feel uncomfortable to some extent as we are never sure what she is actually thinking, and to be honest if she is even thinking anything at all. It's not that you dislike her, but you can't help but feel confused about her. Then Caleb, arguably the main character as we see everything through his eyes, seems stable at the beginning but as the film moves on you can see him slowly losing his mind.



The production for the film was amazing, especially when their low budget is taken into consideration. All of the production effects were added in post-production including the making of Ava's AI suit, which made her half human half robot. When you see how detailed her suit is and how lifelike it is it's hard to believe that the film had the budget that it did. The film even won the Academy award for Best Visual Effects, so if you don't believe me i think the award speaks for itself. The sound used in the film was very different to most films. The majority of the film is in complete silence other than dialogue, I'm not going to lie it feels pretty uncomfortable but I guess that's the whole point of the film really. When they do use music you can tell it has been carefully picked out. The song that stuck out most to me featured in probably the weirdest scene in the whole film, where Nathan and his housekeeper start dancing to Get Down Saturday Night by Oliver Cheatham. Despite it's weirdness it definitely has a complete contrast to the tone of the rest of the film.



There are definitely a lot of moral and ethical issues and questions surrounding the nature of the film. I mean first of all it's dealing with the concept of a robot with the ability to think and feel like a human, something which so far has only been in question but no evidence has ever truly supported it. The idea that robots could have artificial intelligence introduces the suggestion that it's possible that machines could take over if they have higher intelligence than us. If the experiment were to be proven true, that machines could develop true thoughts and feelings then it seems unfair to use them as a way of testing our theories and experimenting on them. Also, if it was proven true would this mean that we would turn to using robots for further experiments with the knowledge that they would react the same as a human would? The other ethical and moral issues that I noticed don't necessarily correlate with the idea of robots but it is about the sexual, and quite sexist, nature of the film. I mean I'm no feminist by any means but I bet that if a group of feminists did see the film they would have a field trip picking out all of the aspects that are 'wrong' within the film. The director/screenwriter for the film was male and so were the producers, and I hate to say it but you can kind of tell. There is a lot of nudity in the film, which does mean it's definitely not for those who are easily offended, and the only people ever to be shown nude are female characters. This goes for women who don't even have a character name, speaking role or even a part in the film really. There is also a conversation that happens between Caleb and Nathan where Nathan addresses the issue that he think Caleb wants to know about and clarifies that Caleb can in fact 'screw' Ava and that he has created her so that she will 'enjoy it'. There are a lot of issues surrounding this, more than just the fact that if Caleb did in fact do this then he would have had sex with a robot - which let's be honest is wrong on so many different levels. Nathan's housekeeper, Kyoko, is used as his sex slave and she isn't able to communicate with him. So technically, he is raping her - not the nicest thing to do but pretty quickly you learn that Nathan isn't one of the nicest guys going.



However, despite all of this I really enjoyed the film. It isn't for those easily offended or any of you true feminists out there but it really is a good watch. I think it tackles a really interesting idea in more detail than we have really heard before and like I said before it gives us a close look into the experiment that most of will probably never get to see.

Ex_Machina Research

Producer

Andrew McDonald and Allon Reich

Director

Alex Garland

Distributor

Universal Pictures

Cast

Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno

Budget

$15 million

Locations

Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire and Valldalen, Norway

Technology

Filmed in digital at 4K resolution. There were no green screens, special effects or tracking markers used in filming - all of the effects were added post-production. In order to create the background behind Alicia Vikander's character they filmed the scenes both with and without her there. After doing this they then rotoscoped her face and her hands, had the rest of her body was digitally painted and they restored the background behind her. They used the camera and body tracking systems to transfer to the CGI robot's movements. Some visual effects were used including the transparent areas of her body, Nathan's blood when he was stabbed and the interior of the artificial brains.

Number of screens - opening weekend

4

Number of screens - peak number

2,055

Box Office Figures

$36.9 million

Issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice

Film4 and DNA Films were responsible for the making of the film. Both of them are small companies especially when compared to other film companies e.g. 20th Century Fox. This can impact on the quality and number of resources and technology the companies have access to. Film4 is a British company owned by Channel 4 Television Corporation . DNA Films is also a British company and one of the most successful production companies located in the UK. Both of the companies are successful in their own way and have been behind some big and successful films e.g. DNA Films was involved with the production of the 2003 film Love Actually. Neither of them are global companies or successful worldwide which makes them a smaller company but they are good at what they do. The film only had a small budget as well, it makes more sense to have smaller production companies who are more used to working with a lower budget as it's more likely they would be able to manage it effectively and cover what they need. Sometimes people prefer working with smaller production companies if they have a certain vision for the film, as sometimes the work of bigger companies can affect the overall look of the film.

The importance of cross media convergence for institutions and audiences

The film was distributed by Universal Pictures, they are able to use their name and power to get the word out there about the film and get it on as many screens as possible. They were behind the advertising for the film and released the trailers for the film in order to spread the word and get their audience interested. Both Film4 and DNA Films are small production companies, if they worked with a small distributor then the film wouldn't get anywhere and it wouldn't be as successful as it was. By working with a big distributor like Universal Pictures it is more likely that the film will be more widespread and generate a bigger audience than it would with a small distributor. Universal Pictures have an advanced understanding about the film industry and what audiences like and don't like. In order to minimise the risk of a loss, they will be careful with how many screens they choose to show the film on. Universal helped finance the film in exchange for worldwide sale rights. However, after the film was finished, Universal decided that the film was too quirky for a big studio release. They knew that it wouldn't work in the way they thought it would so tried to sell the rights to somebody else. Eventually the distributor A24, known for working with indie films, picked it up and put it in cinemas in the US. Initially the film was only shown on 4 screens but just a week later that number had raised to 2,050. This is a clear example of how successful the film was in the US box office as it made such a significant jump.

The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange

Ex-Machina only had a small budget so they couldn't spend a lot of money on special effects and green screens during production. Also, they were working with small production companies who just didn't have the access to high quality technology like some other bigger production companies would. All of the special effects were added in post-production. This meant that they had to prepare for this during production knowing that they would have to edit it later to create the effect they wanted. An example of this is the appearance of Alicia Vikander's character who is a robot with a transparent middle section. In order to add in this transparent effect later on the production team filmed the scenes both with and without her to capture the background behind her. When it got to the stage of post-production they rotoscoped her hands and face, the main features they wanted to keep, then digitally painted the rest of her body and restored the background. This then completed the final look of her with features of both the scenes with her, without her and the post-production effects that digitally painted the rest of her body on. They didn't use any tracking markers during filming, they just relied on camera and body tracking systems to transfer to the robot's CGI movements. The entire film was filmed in digital, which is a cheaper way to film especially for distribution of the film because most cinemas have the technology for digital films instead as that is the format most companies film on. 

The significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences

To make the film available further after the film has been released in the cinema the distributors have to work to find ways for the film to be released that fit in with what modern audiences want. Modern audiences are more likely to stream a film online or through an app with an online subscription than actually going out and buying the film. Films are still released on DVD as there are still audiences that buy them in this format and there are some people who won't use streaming services. If they don't use services and formats that fit nearly everyone then they are at risk of losing a chunk of their market. The film is available on Blu-Ray, DVD, Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play, Playstation Video and Youtube. They have ensured that the film is available on a number of different services so that nearly anyone could go access to the film if they wanted to. 

The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences 

The main marketing campaign that the promotional team ran was on Tinder. They created a profile for Ava, the robot in the film, using pictures of Alicia Vikander. The campaign was launched at the South by Southwest Festival where the film was screened. Ava was matched with other Tinder users who could get to the festival. In the conversation she would send them to the Instagram handle that they thought was hers but was actually promoting the film. The idea behind this was to engage with a younger audience by using an app they may have and interacting with them directly. It was important for the team to reach out to their audience with a medium that suited their target audience.

The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions

The promotion team had an issue with the big marketing campaign they launched on Tinder. The campaign was met with mixed responses, it did well and proved to be effective but most people had more negative views of it. Many people described it as being 'counter-productive', 'an invasion of privacy', 'trolling' and 'trickery'. Even though it was effective it didn't get the best response from the audience they were targeting which doesn't make it a very successful campaign on the whole. Another issue with this is that it only targets audience members who were in that area, which is only a small area, so even though the campaign may have been successful in general it wouldn't have targeted a large audience on a national basis.

The ways in which the candidates' own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour 

I think it's a definite fact that audiences, specifically younger audiences, are more likely to watch a film streamed online than they are to go and see it at the cinema. Often there are a lot of films that we may be interested in but not enough to pay to go and see it at the cinema or maybe it isn't on at a cinema near us and we don't want to travel. The thing that audiences like most about streaming services is having the ability to watch on the go or from the comfort of their own home, they are able to watch it on their phone/laptop without having to use their TV. I think it's important to ensure films are readily available online, as this is where modern audiences are more likely to watch it especially if the film is shown on a limited number of screens.