Monday at the Movies - February 29, 2016

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” The Oscars were last night, so here’s a look at one of the many nominees.

Ex Machina (2015) – While everyone was excited about Mad Max: Fury Road as a genre film that got nominated for Best Picture, it’s a shame that the smarter film (which, rightly so, was nominated for Original Screenplay and Visual Effects) wasn’t at least beside Mad Max on the top. As part of the post-Inception wave of original moody science fiction, Ex Machina asks probing questions about the place of artificial intelligence, the limits of scientific ethics, and the vulnerability of human life in the face of its greatest creations. Oscar Isaac stars as Nathan, a reclusive tech genius who invites his employee Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to his cabin to run a Turing test on his latest invention, a sentient robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander). Caleb’s trip, though, takes a turn when Ava insinuates that Nathan is not telling the whole truth. Now I’ll admit I’m a sucker for this sort of thing, a smart piece of science fiction with an intricate screenplay, but there’s no denying that Ex Machina is gripping in the insular way you might expect from a stage play or brisk novella. Rather than go for broke with spectacle, first-time director Alex Garland (who adds this to a number of his other screenplays in the sf genre) keeps the tension internal, raising horrifying possibilities in ways that even viewers who might have anticipated them come to dread. It’s tightly acted between the three central cast members and a supporting fourth, Sonoya Mizuno as Nathan’s silent assistant Kyoko, and compelling in a way that something so much more spectacular might fail to be. Ex Machina is well performed, hauntingly horrifying, and definitely not one to be missed for any self-respecting science fiction aficionado.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

BUT FIRST – heads up, True Believers – we’ll continue to Make Yours Marvel this Wednesday with another installment in “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” so check back then for 2011’s Thor. Or subscribe above, and receive those missives right in your inbox. Nuff said!