Reviews

This is a place to review anything you are impressed with, or disappointed in. Movies, books, restaurants, sports venues, entertainment, gyms, music CDs, you name it.

This is a great location to inform your friends about unheralded experiences no one is talking about, or things that should be avoided.

 

Movie Review: Ex Machina.

I am an unapologetic sci-fi fan. I had passed up "Ex Machina" on the store shelves several times because I had the impression it would be similar to Scarlett Johansson's "Under the Skin", which I found to be very disappointing. I was wrong.

Ex Machina has a sparse cast of unknowns who are very believable and compelling. Writer/Director Alex Garland (28 Days Later and Sunshine) pulls some great performances out his actors.

The story goes like this; Nathan Bateman is a genius programmer who invented a better search engine and is now incredibly rich. He has a remote research compound in what appears to be New Zealand. Nathan has developed an artificial being with fascinating intelligence and a deep emotional facility.

Caleb Smith is a programmer who works at Nathan's company and is chosen to come to Nathan's compound for a week and evaluate the A.I.

Ava, the A.I., is Nathan's greatest accomplishment, even more so than his majestic computer software dynasty. You will be drawn to her and begin to feel for her. And, in the end you'll find that she is just a creature like ourselves, but with advantages.

Ex Machina has many turns and twists, plenty of suspense and cringe-worthy scenes. The scenery is beautiful and the director uses the forested seclusion as a prop. The cinematography is outstanding and the movie, overall, is very well done.

I found myself pondering Ex Machina for several days after I saw it. It is deep and gives you plenty to think about. Visually, it provides an abundance of eye candy and the CGI effects are among the most believable I have seen.

I highly recommend it. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 92%. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ex_machina/

 

Right, he played Nathan in Ex Machina and will be in the new Star Wars movie. You couldn't tell he was Guatamalan in the movie. He has a decent resume and certainly isn't an unknown as I stated in my review.

I liked all of Harrison Ford's movies from Blade Runner through the Indiana Jones series. He's still going strong but I thought he was kind of unimpressive in Ender's Game, however, Cowboys and Aliens was great!