New to theaters this week is the sci-fi film Ex Machina, written/directed by Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine) and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Alicia Vikander. The film begins when a programmer for a giant search engine company is invited to spend a week at the estate of the company’s reclusive CEO. Soon after arriving, however, he discovers that he has been selected to help evaluate the capabilities of the CEO’s latest creation, an experiment in artificial intelligence called Ava, whose abilities may extend further than either of them could have ever expected.
What’re the critics saying? They’re calling it a conversational and intellectual piece of speculative science-fiction, with crisp, chilly imagery and production design. While most critics are yeasayers, some were disappointed with the film’s final act, which apparently takes everything that came before and tosses it out for something more pulpy and obvious. Whether you’d rather dish out the cash for a ticket or just wait for it to pop up on some streaming service a few months from now, here are five movies similar to Ex Machina.
2001: A Space Odyssey (directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The sci-fi masterpiece to end all sci-fi masterpieces. No explanation needed.
Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang, 1927)
Fritz Lang’s silent German expressionist futurist classic (that’s a mouthful) set the standard for what science-fiction could be.
Blade Runner (directed by Ridley Scott, 1982)
Combining the best of film noir and philosophical sci-fi, it still stands tall as a wholly original beast of its own, raising questions about existence, consciousness, and more. It also looks incredible as hell.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (directed by Steven Spielberg, 2001)
While it received somewhat mixed reviews upon initial release, this Spielberg film (and Kubrick-inspired homage) has since been reevaluated as one of the best works of his late career.
Under the Skin (directed by Jonathan Glazer, 2014)
Already one of my personal favorite films of the decade (so far). Sublime imagery, a chilling performance from Scarlett Johansson, and fascinating commentary on gender, sexuality, and what it means to be human.
