We’ve seen sci-fi films, we’ve seen knotty love stories, but it’s likely we haven’t seen anything quite like "Ex Machina." Blending a variety of genres and bringing together a great, young cast (two of whom are in another sci-fi spectacle in 2015, a little movie you might’ve heard of called "Star Wars: Episode VII"), this is a film we’re eager to see. And today, the first two trailers have arrived.
And one of the big reasons we’re anticipating "Ex Machina" is screenwriter Alex Garland. He’s made quite the name for himself over the years in the world of genre film, writing three movies for Danny Boyle (two of which he directed), —“28 Days Later,” “Sunshine,” and “28 Weeks Later” — one for Mark Romanek (“Never Let Me Go”), and he also penned the 2012 cult fave “Dredd.” But as many celebrated screenwriters are wont to do, Garland is trying his hand at directing, and is making his debut with “Ex Machina," an ambitious futuristic psychological sci-fi thriller with romantic overtones.
Film4, the picture’s U.K. producers, describe it as an “intense psychological thriller, played out in a love triangle between two men and a beautiful robot girl. It explores big ideas about the nature of consciousness, emotion, sexuality, truth and lies.” And it stars three very talented and on-the-rise actors including Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander.
“Ex Machina” centers on a computer coder (Gleeson) who wins the chance to spend a week at the house in the mountains belonging to the CEO (Isaac) of the company he works for, only to find he has to participate in an experiment involving a new brand of artificial intelligence. It’s a robot in a female form played by Vikander who has an emotional intelligence that is sophisticated, seductive and much more deceptive than the two men could have imagined.
It looks and sounds like a stylish and cerebral thriller. “Ex Machina” was just picked up for U.S. distribution by A24 yesterday. It hits U.K. theaters in January and comes stateside on April 10, 2015. Check out the domestic and international trailers below.
