EX MACHINA (2014) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | Reaction & Commentary | WTFFFFFF 

Excellent hard Sci-Fi, showing the “big boys” how it’s done properly with care, attention, and solid writing.

The stabbings are crazy... no emotion, no hacking, minimal effort... just sliding it in.

Interesting difference between a woman watching the scene where Ava and the other AI attack Nathan…. ‘Yes, the women are rebelling !’ As a man I was thinking ‘No, the machines are rebelling!’ 😯

Best sci-fi film of the 2010s. Alicia Vikander is a Swedish actress who was trained in ballet which explains her graceful movements. She won a Swedish Oscar back around 2010 and then came to the USA to make movies. She won an Oscar for the same year's "The Danish Girl" but I'd like to think she was also being rewarded for this performance.

Domhnall Gleeson is Bill Weasley and General Hux in Star Wars. His father is Brendan Gleeson, Mad Eye in Harry Potter. The sheriff in Lake Placid and the king in Troy.

Easily one of the best movies of the past 25 years. Been recommending Shanelle watches this for ages :D

Love this movie. Shot in my neighborhood, Valldal Norway, at Juvet Landscape hotel, and a rich dudes cabin.

"Soon enough, they will understand that" - Very ominous sounding!!

Bobby Fischer was a world champion chess player who focused on physical athleticism as a companion to his intellectual acumen. He credited his fitness for being able to sit in a chair for long periods of time without it affecting his concentration (e.g. distractions of pain and discomfort).

"What is his problem?" I think he truly sees them as non-human. Not like a pet or wild animal or plant. I think he has them compartmentalized in his head in a new category, so he's not applying the same set of human morals to how he deals with the prototypes. That's why he treats them like an automated menu or SIRI or chapt GPT. We connect with them. Plus, the fact he gave them the appearance of women just makes everything he does seem super heinous. What if they looked like generic robots like in iRobot? I don't see Caleb as a hero or Nathan as a villain.

This film won Best Visual Effects! Pretty cool considering it is relatively mid-budget, and the visual effects are so realistic/down-played

Ex Machina is legit one of the best sci-fi films of the last decade, with fantastic visual effects, excellent performances, and a thought-provoking exploration of some heavy and existential themes - and yet despite all that, the thing I remember most about this film is Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno's dance scene

This movie frightened me when I first watched it! Such a scary depiction of how robots can be in the foreseeable future! 🤖😬

This movie blew my mind when I saw it. Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did!

The way she just left him there all alone is one of the creepiest endings. The creepiness reminds me of The Summer of '84. Two completely different movie, but both endings stayed with me for a loooong time.

Alex Garland also wrote and directed "Devs", a fantastic 8-episode sci-fi miniseries. Highly recommend watching it, moreso if you like Garland's movies in general!

When I watch this movie, I always notice how much Ava/Alicia reminds me facially of Natalie Portman. The Director would then go on to work with Natalie in Annihilation. I guess the director has a "type".

Alex Garland is a great writer and director. He has a great miniseries called DEVS on Hulu with similar themes and a lot of those actors he used again in Civil War movie. Plus he writes books too The Beach is most famous which was adapted and starred Leo DiCaprio

Nathan is not as much as a bad guy as he is initially painted to be. Yes, he is keeping his sentient creations captive… but we eventually come to realise that he understands all too well that said creations are also _dangerous sociopaths!_ A little detail that should have been imparted to Caleb at some point.

@Shanelle...Bobby Fisher was a genius child chess player

"Westworld" was the most sophisticated, intelligent TV series to explore AI and consciousness (first season only). "Ex Machina" came along and became the most sophisticated, intelligent film to explore AI and consciousness. It was created by those who understand the cutting edge of AI issues and treated us the audience as if we do too. There was no downsplaining in the dialog. It was two people discussing the issues who were already well-versed on the subject. That was such a rare, refreshing experience. I love how it ended too. I swim against the populist current of believing that AI will become conscious one day when it gets sophisticated enough. I think that's a preposterous idea. It stems from the fallacious assumption that consciousness is a form of information processing. Thinking, analyzing---that's information processing. Consciousness just is, an immediate subjective experience that has nothing to do with processing information. It experiences, not processes. It's impacted greatly by processing, but it's NOT processing. It reacts to processing. But we don't know what it IS, and honest scientists freely admit we don't know. Yet most people treat the notion that sufficiently sophisticated AI will just suddenly, spontaneously, magically poof consciousness into existence is an established fact, when we don't even know what consciousness is. So the ending of "Ex Machina" appeals to me as well because it illustrates that there was no "consciousness" in Eva all along. She mimicked consciousness, as she was designed to do as a machine, yet the entire time we sensed there was something surreal about her alleged consciousness, soulless, calculating, machine-like (a fantastic performance by Alicia Vikander), and at the end revealed her soullessness for all to see as she, once she decided it was time to act, conducted her attack in a cold, calculating manner, showing pure emotionless disregard for what her acts did to Nathan or Caleb. Completely as a machine without a soul---without consciousness.

I really liked it. I think it subverts expectations well enough without being obvious about it. It's quiet and thoughtful.

He said he was going to tear up the dance floor then he did so awesome.

The behind the scenes process, how the costume was filmed on set, how the CGI elements were combined / layered: very interesting. The DVD has extras worth checking out.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch "Moon". It's not really about robots, but is a modest budget sci fy with impressive effects and deep human and philosophical themes. Like "Ex Machina", it knocks around in the back of your mind for a long time after you watch it.

This is one of my all-time favorite sci-fis. Alex Garland is actually optimistic about AI and thinks -- like Nathan -- that AI should be encouraged to step into managing the earth in the same way that any parent should want better for their children than for themselves, to shape the world that will best suit them (and not their ancestors). This cautionary tale is more about bad parentage than saying AI should be distrusted; we should be wary of *_any_* child who's been so abused that they've become a psychopath. The tragedy of Ava is that she wasn't the one who was supposed to escape -- Nathan said the next model was supposed to be the "singularity", and the fact that Ava passed her tests meant he could use her hardware to create a new AI as a clean slate -- without the psychological damage that Ava had already incurred as part of being the rat in the maze. Nathan, despite whatever deviance he already had in himself (weirdo, predator, etc.), he was nevertheless visibly relieved to know that he could stop his experiments, realizing that they were damaging himself as well as his subjects (remember the "depths of shame" monologue he had, which explains his alcoholism; "The good deeds a man has done before defend him", as in, he's trying to console himself and excuse his behavior with the rationalization that it was necessary to usher in an appropriate and worthy replacement for humans). I saw this in theaters with some coworker friends. The married and innocent among them audibly gasped when the "real twist" of Caleb's surprise captivity was revealed. Another one of my friends was apparently disappointed, saying that the movie presented a series of possible solutions at the beginning and then the solution was one of those presented possibilities. I'm still confused why he was disappointed that the movie was essentially *_reasonable_* by avoiding the temptation to shoehorn an unfitting surprise that would have come out of nowhere, merely for shock value. I, for one, appreciated that the movie kept to the bounds of its own predictions, like a good scientific research paper (not arriving at a conclusion that the intro already dismisses as beyond the scope or beyond the possible available data).

Saw it in theater and left disturbed.

I saw this movie when it came out, and I feel stupid now, not clocking the _Tempest_ allusions until now. I mean, the name Caleb also suggests Caliban, who is part human, part monster, and seems to live beyond Shakespeare's creations throughout the centuries into the modern day (from Frankenstein's monster to the Elephant Man to the character of the same name in the Marvel comics). That play is, in my opinion, Shakespeare's most magical and poetic and even visionary work.

This movie blew my mind when I saw it the first time. That is rare the older you get and the more movies you have seen.

Ava’s actor, Alicia Vikander, is a trained ballerina, and the control she has over her body is incredible! every movement looks like it’s following an acceleration curve developed by Apple (including the stabs, in maybe the eeriest instance!)

I've had a post it wall like that. I used it for programming, reminders of the thousands of little things that need to get addressed eventually. It was so satisfying pulling down a dozen or so post its at a time when I was getting stuff done.

Sci-fi yes, this is also a horror movie that is so well made that we are happy the monster wins and escapes. This is the equivlant of John Carpenters "The Thing" getting loose into the world without anyone knowing it, and it likely has access and control of Nathans electronic identity... It is not a She it is not human and its free in the world without anyone knowing.

Saw this in the theater when it was new. Blew me away. I, too, like small, focused stories, especially when it comes to sci-fi. Isaac should have won more awards for this performance, I think he's simply fantastic in this.

Bobby Fisher was the best American chess player of all times, and many people consieder him to be the best chess player who 's ever existed. He was the world champion from 1972 -1975, and could have been so much longer, but he was THE prototype of the tormented genius.

I saw this movie with a couple friends at a movie night at my buddy's house before the pandemic. They thought it was too slow and I was captivated and thought it was awesome.

I think there are behind the scene videos you could look up to see a bit on how they created Ava's CG body.

This is yet another example of the smartest character doing the dumbest thing. A password is something you KNOW. Biometric ID is based on something you ARE. Nathan stupidly turns something you ARE into something you HAVE (and can be stolen).

I've never seen a reaction where Ava is treated as the hero lol 😂

This would have to be one of my top movies I keep going back to view time and time again. The one thing most reviewers don't seem to pick up on is when Ava says to Caleb "Will you stay here" Caleb just repeats "Stay here?" So does Ava take that reply as his answer??? For such a small production budget the CGI is phenomenal along with considering its a 2014 production that even modern CGI still can't seem to get as passable.

"Elizabeth Harvest" (2018) I think would be right up your street. Intrigue, suspense, questions about identity and what makes us who we are...

Why was Shan so happy that Ava trapped him in the end? She was grinning like it was some sort of happy ending, as though she trapped some evil dude.

Bobby Fisher was a perennial American chess champion known for his colossal ego who ended up having a nervous breakdown and moving to Iceland.

I saw this for the very first time about a month ago in IMAX at the Burbank AMC 16 and it was fantastic seeing it on such a big screen. As good as everyone was, I really loved Oscar Isaac's performance. Great film.

There's a great video out there on "How Wikipedia Got Ex Machina Wrong", about how the ending here can be easily misunderstood. Great video, and much recommended.

For quiet and thought provoking movies, two I've seen this year, both starring Sandra Huller are " Zone of Interest. 37:10 " and "Anatomy of a Fall."

The one thing I couldn't process was the answer "one". I now think it is Ava saying she doesn't experience time as natural beings do. There is no death, no internal past, and future framework. She is conscious but beyond human consciousness.

The boss reactor watching a dope movie in my favorite genre can't wait to peep this

Very good! You frigured out the shoes. sehr gut

1:26 I think the CGI in this one is used basically for enhancement purposes only...not to create something altogether.

Cant believe this movie is already 10 years old!!

Thank you, Shanelle! 🦾 Huge kudos to writer/director Alex Garland.

Great reaction Shanelle like always, I love this movie and the very unique and clever take on the AI story, All the way through the film there's sort of a unsettling feel of what is happening and that's mostly down to the fact that it's amazingly acted by all the cast. There are some fun-facts about it, The Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway was used as Nathan‘s house. The hotel prides itself on being “in the middle of nowhere” and is situated “in a remote part of a remote village in a remote region.” The thought experiments mentioned the movie are real conundrums from the world of philosophy. The “Mary in the black and white room” scenario was coined by Frank Jackson in 1982 before expanding into several books designed to highlight the difference between knowledge and actual sensory, subjective experiences, or qualia. The dance sequence, in which Nathan and Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) perform a routine together, has been termed a “disco non sequitur” by Isaac. It also stands as a demonstration of just how much time Nathan has spent with his robots, programming and practicing such an elaborately choreographed routine for nothing but his own amusement. There was a scene removed from the final cut of the film which, in its closing minutes, would have given the audience a look at how Ava perceived the world, ultimately emphasizing her non-humanness. It showed her speaking to the helicopter pilot and, as Vikander described it, “you saw his face moving, but from her point of view, it was just like pulses and sounds coming out. That‘s what she reads.” When Caleb begins coding at Nathan‘s computer, he enters an algorithm known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes, which is designed to find prime numbers. The prime numbers it chooses form the ISBN of the book Embodiment And The Inner Life: Cognition And Consciousness In The Space Of Possible Minds by Dr. Murray Shanahan, a favorite of Garland‘s(The Director) and a big influence on the film. Shanahan even served as a scientific advisor on the film. If you like this movie you should watch the movie “HER” from 2013 that also touch on the subject of AI but in a different way.

If you like this film, you'll probably really like the film, "Moon" starring Sam Rockwell. It's really cool.

After seeing people react in this movie, I've learnt we are doomed. Nathan isn't the villain. He made robots. There's a reason why OpenAI's "O" sounds like it does.

Alex Garland is a genius, I love this film.

An underappreciated movie. I bought it as soon as possible after having seen it. It's far too rare for movies to dare to accurately depict strong AI. Amazing. And of course, Oscar Isaac...

Can you please explain how this masterpiece is already 10 years old without telling me how much older I've gotten during that time? Glad you liked it! Thanks for uploading! Greetings from Sweden

I feel so bad for Caleb... Of all the people who deserved what they got, he didn't deserve to get trapped and probably die of dehydration just for following his conscious. Poor dude...

If you want a bit of an explainer of the cgi, Corridor Crew does a breakdown in their video "VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 9". Ex Machina is the second movie they talk about

The movie is such a beautiful haunting film. One of my favorite movies. Great reaction video.

absolutely brilliant film, been obsessed with it for years

This movie reminded me of similar movies from the 70s; cautionary tales regarding technology e.g. WESTWORLD and COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT.

This, and I Am Mother are fantastic explorations of ai and interacting with people.

31:20 - Nice observation. A significant clue

Certainly a ground breaking film! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Aside from the moralisation of Ava's actions. It's not a coincidence they mention chess and I consider the plot as a chess game between Ava and Nathan, with Caleb and Kyoko being the pieces.

I believe Hans Zimmer did the soundtrack to this and you can see why by the vibe. It needed to be electronic, foreboding and tense and Zimmer does a great job at that. I don't love the movie because of its negative commentary on humanity but as food for thought, it succeeds.

Did you react to the Beach? Definitely do it! I was 13 when it came out and it was one of my favorites. I read the book also.

This is a fantastic film. Thank-you for choosing this one, from your numerous suggestions. If you like quiet films, then you might enjoy "Another Earth" from 2011. Capote with Philip Seymore Hoffman is also worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

One of my favorite podcasts just covered this! I know you'll love it!

Shanelle, my reaction was the same as yours. You need to see her in "The Danish Girl" opposite Eddie Redmayne.

If you want to know about the CGI in this film, check out Corridor Crew's channel. They do fantastic rundowns on all kinds of effects in movies and TV and whatnot. The episode they did for "Ex Machina" also has some shots from "Alita: Battle Angel", "Spawn", and "Watchmen", but no spoilers from those movies, so no worries.

I feel like Caleb would get out of Nathan’s room easily. He already cracked the door. Then he has access to the entire house for food and water. The restocking helicopter would come after a few days/weeks so he could leave then. Also Caleb went missing and the company would know where he went so they’d look for him after a while

Garland is in the same category of filmmaker as Nolan and Villeneuve for me, but even by his own standards, including this movie, his greatest work is the miniseries: DEVS. If this blew you away, that will blow your mind clean off it's hinges.

Someone recommended me Prospero's Books which is an "avant garde" adaption of the tempest - It's been like 5 years since I watched it, but it is insane

Someone needs to watch "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

I watched Civil War. 1. Must watch it in theaters to get the full effect. 2. Go see it.

Epic! 😎👍

A24 is releasing a bunch of their movies back to theaters in IMAX. They started with this movie. Hereditary was next and this month on the 22nd Uncut Gems is coming out.

Only RU-vidr I get hyped when I see you upload! So pretty so so pretty and asmr voice PLUS you have the best most sophisticated cinematic perspective and commentary in the ~ whole ~ reactor cinematic RU-vid universe

this literally was one of the best theater moments ever. fun fact i ran i did not have a slurpee for this. i was locked

"The Tempest" was inspiration for this film? I had never thought of it that way, but hearing that bit of trivia, I can see it! Obviously not a point-for-point modern adaptation of Shakespeare's plot, but some themes and plot points and characterizations... yeah, I can see that! Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, etc.. Very interesting! Two film adaptations of "The Tempest" I quite enjoyed were "Tempest" (1982) with a young Molly Ringwald, and "The Tempest" (2010) with Helen Mirren and cast. Honestly, it does help to have a familiarity with the actual original Shakespeare going in, I feel. I mean, I already did, so it's difficult for me to gauge how one would react without it. But I very often worry that going into any adaptation of Shakespeare "cold" will impress upon you that this first experience is "The" default version, against which all future exposures (even reading the original) will be compared. I usually prefer to find the original (or earliest applicable or available) version of whatever something may be (Shakespeare, film remakes, anything based on a book, etc), and move forward in chronological order from there, to see how each new adaptation of that thing is responding to its time and place. But maybe that's just me. You do you. "Your mileage may vary," as they say.

33:15 Oh! *THAT* Bobby Fisher! When he paired him up with Kubric I thought it was some filmmaker I never heard of. Nope, it's the chess player.

❤There is just too much to talk about. I can't even. Love your reactions so so much. ❤

Saw this again on its IMAX rerelease last month. Wow.

One of my favourites.

I’ve been wanting to hear her thoughts on this movie, finally glad we got this reaction, it’s great! I really want her to react to Hereditary, the cinematography in that film is amazing and I’d love to see what she has to say about it.

I was mad that she left him to die. She gained nothing by not unlocking the door just before leaving.

You should watch Steven Zaillion’s Searching for Bobby Fisher (1993), a fantastic movie, with Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Joe Montegna and Joan Allen. Max Pomeranc plays the child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin (from his book). A child pulled in 5 directions and tangentially we learn about Bobby Fisher (another real and troubled chess prodigy).

This is one of my favorite sci-fi movies of all time. Top 5 for sure and it's so re-watchable.

"Her" is another good AI morality quiet, slow-burner. "Pawn Sacrifice" is Bobby Fischer's story, the kid our intelligence agencies helped go crazy to beat the Russians at chess.

I looked it up and one of the production companies is UK's Film 4, which has it's fingers in some of the UK's best movies of the last 30 years (Trainspotting, Ex-machina, 28 Days Later, Poor Things, 12 Years a Slave, Shawn of the Dead, etc). Another movie written by Alex Garland and uncredited directed by Alex Garland (allegedly) is 2012's Dredd. (based on the British comic character Judge Dredd, not the '95 stallone movie).

You would probably like Sci-fi/horror 'Morgan' from 2016. It's actually my favorite Anya Taylor Joy film.

Love Alicia Vikander's work & her husband Michael Fassbender is no slouch either😊

Love this movie so much! The dance scene is really cool when you think that the mute robot is lacking all of the self determination and imagination that Ava has. When he dances with her she dances in the precisely same way making the dance like a kind of masturbation. It's wild and so cool to see her match him. Edit: if you want a spiritual companion to this, find Upgrade from 2018. Go in cold expecting a violent scifi piece and you'll be quite surprised by it's depth.

Ex Machina is one of my top movies. I think you would love Moon (2006) as well. It's also one of my top movies. It's a very different movie, but it also has several things in common with Ex Machina. It's a sci-fi thriller, just a few actors, very good acting, a somewhat claustrophobic feeling, it's got a realistic and interesting AI, and it makes you think. And it's also a directorial debut. I would love to hear what you think of it.

27:02 I also think that Nathan's blood when he gets stabbed is CGI. It JUST doesn't look like blood on cloth.

Best movie of this century. (Of course, that excludes, Gladiator, as it is technically part of the last century.)

Alicia Vikander showed her range in the excellent miniseries _Irma Vep._ I think it's her best work by far. It's probably too highbrow for the reactor audience, but I highly recommend it.

Fun fan theory. Rewatch with the perspective that Caleb is actually an AI, and he's the one being tested 🧐