10 Best Sci-Fi Movies Of The 21st Century
3. Ex Machina (2015)
Ex Machina thrives on the apparent cultural paranoia over the inevitable development of self-awareness within artificially intelligent beings. Here, programmer Caleb Smith (Domnhall Gleeson) is tasked with understanding whether the artificially intelligent android called Ava (Alicia Vikander) developed by his CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac) is truly capable of consciousness.
What follows is a manipulative triangle of doubts and deceit as Ava tries to negotiate her escape and builds a relationship with naive programmed Caleb against her supposed prison warden. We see glimpses into previous models, the amazing domestic technology within Nathan Bateman's luxurious private retreat, and are kept on our toes throughout by a well-paced, engaging and intelligent screenplay. Ex Machina proves that film can be just an intelligent as any other medium, asking you to reflect on who's really to blame at every point in the action.
Ex Machina launched Alex Garland's directorial career and continued to prove he's a writer to be admired within modern cinema. Ex Machina is full of twists throughout, and we're never quite sure who to trust or believe right the way through. It's a full thought experiment that really tries to explore what our relationship with robots might eventually look like.