Movie Poster

One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.

# Review

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer wins a one week stay at the isolated and luxurious home of his CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Little does Caleb know, Nathan is conducting an experiment involving a humanoid robot powered by a highly advanced artificial intelligence Ava (Alicia Vikander).

I really enjoyed the cerebral nature of the film, with its sleek cinematography and set design. Ava’s CGI is very well done. The casting is perfect; I really enjoyed the foil between Gleeson’s awkward and stiff Caleb and Isaac’s domineering and egotistical Nathan. Viksander’s Ava is just creepy enough to be unsettling. My favourite aspect of the film is the explanation of the technology behind Ava, such as Nathan hacking people’s phone cameras to get facial and vocal data to train Ava. The film is a tad unrealistic as it portrays a single person creating all of the tech, while in reality technology is created typically a group of smart people making iterative changes. Despite this, the film shows a very plausible future. I also enjoyed the various philosophical dialogues between the characters such as musings on the nature of humans and AI. The pacing is a bit slow, but the film does get more interesting as it goes on.

# Conclusion

An interesting film about AIs and their role to humans.

# Overall rating: 7.8

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