We saw "Ex Machina" and it was boring

[drwex]

I had skipped seeing Ex Machina when it was in the first-run theaters because the trailers made it look too much like a horror film. We finally saw it last week at the Brattle. The film is not horror, in the modern sense of "horror" = "shock and splatter" but it is intended to be horrific. Sadly, it fails to do anything it ought to do. 1/5 stars.

I waffled about one or two stars. It gets +1 for being remarkably technically accurate, including some hilarious screenshots of what I think was pretty simple C/C++ code. And the explanation of how the intelligence gets built and learns isn't grossly far off what we think the best in strong AI is doing today. But the film gets a -1 for gratuitous voyeuristic male-gaze full frontal nudity and sexism.

The premise is that a lone genius has somehow invented a Turing-capable AI via techniques such as hacking every cellphone to watch peoples' faces and learn human expression plus massive text analysis from mining a world-wide search engine. This idiot then embeds the AI in a robotic body. Because reasons. Thus creating an android, though it's referred to as a robot throughout. And for REASONS he makes the body - and the robot's programming - cis-female and heterosexual. It thinks of itself as "she" and is programmed to be attractive to (flirt with, come on to) hetero men. And, we're told, is fully functional (thank you, Data).

So, that's icky. Turns out the reason it's icky is because the lone genius is also icky, and a careless drunk, and pretty much a sociopath who doesn't care that he's using the world's people and their information for his own purposes. Yay. Guess what kind of android a sociopath programs? Now explain to me why I should care when his creations turn on him?

Oh and there's a patsy, a guy brought in to (Turing) test the android. Except the entire test is rigged and you're supposed to guess who's testing whom. The patsy is testing the robot and also his freaky sociopath genius host who is in turn testing the two of them.

The only interesting part of the movie is when the android Ava (Alicia Vikander) turns from test-ee to tester and starts trying to dig the humanity out of loner nerd patsy Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson). There is a remarkably Silence of the Lambs-esque character to this table-turning and I found Ava the only sympathetic character. Which made it particularly offensive when I had to sit through an extended bit of Ms. Vikander's admittedly attractive body completely nude on camera. Even as the plot tries to imbue Ava with agency and authority over her body and destiny the camerawork and direction rob her of it. Instead of rooting for her I ended up wishing she'd just vanish and the movie to be over.

Fortunately she's also an idiot who seems not to remember she needs to charge via the induction plates in the house so when she leaves she's essentially becoming a Replicant, doomed to die soon anyway.

And therein lies the core of this film's problem. It's not doing anything that previous films haven't done better and more originally. Modernizing the story only gets you so far - if you're going to retell Frankenstein at least tell it in an interesting way.

Comments

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review. I always enjoy your take on things, even for movies I didn't intend to see anyway.

[drwex]

Thanks for the commentary.

[minkrose]

Interesting -- I still plan to see this, so I'm not reading your review (please, no spoilers) but my sister UTTERLY ADORED this movie, so I'm fascinated by the difference of opinion. :-) Hence, definitely still planning to see it.

[drwex]

Well do let me know what you think of it.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

I recommend seeing Alicia Vikander kick ass in The Man from UNCLE as a palate cleanser.

[drwex]

Yes, that film is very much on my "when can I get some free time" list. Hopefully in the next week.

[drwex]

Comment went in wrong place. Sorry. Moving it.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Fortunately she's also an idiot who seems not to remember she needs to charge via the induction plates in the house so when she leaves she's essentially becoming a Replicant, doomed to die soon anyway.

This isn't necessarily well-supported by the narrative: we're given no hint at all whether the charge plates are a custom aspect of Nathan's mad scientist lair or something that's now commonplace in the outside world.

[drwex]

True. I was trying to remember whether I saw conventional plugs for things like the phone and lights. I'm pretty sure his kitchen had a plug for the juicer. But sure, I'll handwave that. It doesn't change my overall dislike of the movie.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

BTW, you should now immediately take 50m out of your life and watch this. Just trust me:

https://youtu.be/mzSIQxc_KqE

[drwex]

I do trust you. I will watch it. But probably not until tomorrow.

[drwex]

OK so now I've seen it and it was totally worth the time. Way more interesting and less predictable than Ex Machina.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I actually think that they make a fascinating set of accidental companion pieces due to their shared casting. They're mining some of the same anxieties, but in a very different fashion: EM is a horror film that takes a long time to reveal that it's a horror film. "Be Right Back" is a tragic love story that keeps faking you out with hints that it might actually be a horror film. Both are concerned with the nature of consciousness and attraction and how machines might fit into that; EM's AI is (at the end) vast, cool and unsympathetic. BRB's AI might not even be an AI (and I very much loved how careful they were to never actually lay that card down), but it's built of nothing but warmth and sympathy.

I suspect that EM plays a lot better for people who aren't deeply immersed in the speculative literature around AI. Myself I liked it despite its flaws, mostly since the "vast, cool & unsympathetic" breed of AI has generally not gotten a lot screen time: Ava isn't insane or evil, she just has a goal (escape) which she pursues relentlessly and she stops caring about her tools (Caleb, the earlier droids) the moment she has no further use for them.

I feel like Garland's reach exceeded his grasp a bit w/r/t the sexual bits. It made sense in the narrative that a stunted personality like Nathan's would build a series of sexbots, and most of the plot of the movie involved Ava trying to escape the vision of femininity he was trying to impose on her. But while I imagine that the ending sequence was intended to be her choosing her own presentation before leaving, there wasn't much getting around that it was also a slow five minutes of camera time lingering over a naked 22-year-old actress. I'd've been happier if we'd seen her abandon any pretense at looking human once she'd successfully exfiltrated herself.

[drwex]

I mostly agree with you, though I think Ava is more a reflection of Nathan's sociopathy than "unsympathetic". She actively uses people and things as much as she can then discards them. For example there was no reason for her to leave Caleb locked up, but it was clearly a revenge move for her own captivity. At least, that's how I read it.

I agree that it's good BRB doesn't try to claim AI. It's a clever mirror and it does just that.

[elfy.livejournal.com]

Didn't see it, but your review pretty much fits what I expected based on the trailer.

[ckd]

My big suspension-of-disbelief issue was having someone so super-concerned about security use single-factor authentication for highly sensitive access, and that factor being the really bad one (something you have). He clearly has access to good biometric options like face or iris recognition! Heck, even a stupid 8 character password would have helped.

[drwex]

I agree it's dumb, but I also accept that people aren't geniuses in every area. A common flaw of smart people is thinking they're smart about things they really don't know.

[ckd]

Yeah, and it could well have been intentional as part of the test. It just seemed off for the character to miss something like that in his area of expertise.

[drwex]

This XKCD is on point: http://xkcd.com/1570/

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Small postscript: the visible bit of code in EM was python.

[drwex]

Still more proof that the mad genius was an idiot :)

See comment ckd for context.