Ex Machina

Don't mean to insult here, but who else wants to love a machine. Bear with me: this movie has a deep insight to communicate, whether intended or not is open to question.

The story is a modern telling of Bluebeard's Castle as the correct version of Beauty and the Beast. In other words, it seems to be about impotence. Except that this is geek love, love at an impossible distance, that is eroticism. And the movie itself tells you all you need to know about eros.

The insight. Ex Machina is ostensibly about Turing's Test, the thesis that a machine might be so human as to fool a human being. Does Ava pass this test? Depends on how you perceive the test. Ex Machina actually implies a more relevant Test: could a machine seem so human as to make the human being inteacting with it come to believe that he himself is a machine?

And the insight? It might be that the solution to the AI/human interface may not involve the humanising of robots, but the robotisation of humans.

Only 8/10 because it is not clear that this insight was actually part of the plot. But whether you find eros or AI in this movie, you will have a rewarding journey.