Ex Machina

I would say Ex Machina falls into the genre of sci-fi, but the science being discussed seemed like the type of theoretical science people talk about in real life. That was interesting to me, the fact that the whole idea of artificial intelligence isn't that outlandish. Of course, a machine with real human emotions is impossible, but it's fun to think about. Ex Machina is the story of a small time coder named Caleb working for a fictional parallel to Google called "BlueBook". He's selected at random to go spend a week working with the CEO, Nathan, in his private home and research center. After going there, he learns that what Nathan is working on is a whole lot crazier than what he expected. The story deals with a very complicated topic that many movies have dealt with before, and that is the question of if it's possible for a machine to feel emotion, and what the dangers of AI are. It's the basis of all sorts of films like I, Robot, Chappie, Avengers:Age of Ultron, and plenty more. What I like especially about this one is the fear and suspense it creates. It was very tense and quite scary at moments, but it didn't have a single jump-scare, I am happy to report. When the film progressed, the mood kept continuing to darken, creating a strong building of tension and unsettlement. Even after it all fell apart and ended, I still wasn't sure what was coming. It also made me question exactly what was going on, who was good, who was evil, and whether or not either of those words can even be used to describe such a complicated set of characters. I can't get into all the things I liked beyond that because there's no way to explain it without ruining the suspense. I will say I was confused by the motives of one of the characters at the end, as the motives of that character conflicted with their decision of how to act on that motive. That sounds really confusing now, and if you see it, it still probably won't make much sense, so I'll explain what I mean in the next paragraph, which I warn you will be infested with spoilers.

Ava, the AI character shows that she obviously has emotion throughout the film, as her motive is to learn what it's like to be a real woman. She also desires to see the real sun and walk on the real earth, and fall in real love with somebody. These are all desires driven by emotion. The way she tries to get these things, as revealed in the end, is to manipulate Caleb into helping her escape. It works, she escapes, and she leaves him for dead. If she really did have emotion, which is definitely true, why didn't she at least feel remorse after leaving this guy who saved her life? I thought this could be called a continuity error, and it seems like it could easily have been avoided. It was probably because the creators wanted to show AI with emotion, but they also wanted to make the point that machines don't have the ability to love or care for anyone. These two ideas conflict, they can't both be used in the same story.

With this one weak point I still loved Ex Machina. It was powerful, scary, suspenseful and heartbreaking. Continuity errors aren't that big of a deal. A.

Unbreakable

Unbreakable is a superhero film by M. Night Shyamalan. It isn't a superhero film in the normal sense, though. It isn't based off any comics and the there aren't any costumes or masks. The story is one of a relatively normal man named David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who, after a tragic accident, learns something incredible about himself; he's indestructible. He is encountered by a man with the exact opposite condition, Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who wants to turn Dave into superhero like in the comics he collects. He has incredibly brittle weak bones that can break easily. The story strips down all the action and other unnecessary scenes, pulling out all of the basic underlying messages superhero movies are about. It spends equal time developing the hero as it does the villain, showing exactly how they reached their places in the world. What I thought was really special was the motive of the villain. Most of the time, the main antagonist is two-dimensional, or, even if he is deep, he's driven by a predictable motive like money or revenge. Instead this villain is driven by the simple need to know what his place in the world is. What was best was the tense mood throughout, which was enhanced by very sufficient directing. My favorite scene was when Elijah was trying to chase down a man, but with his condition, running can be very dangerous. When the man runs down into the subway system, Elijah decides to risk it and go down after him. I was on the edge of my seat, as the stairs looked very steep, and as he walked down, the camera zoomed in on his feet. I was just waiting for him to misstep and fall. The two weak points were the pointless romance, and the ending. It was very abrupt, without any closure. I liked the closing dialogue, but once it ended, there were some words about what happened next, then the credits rolled. We never actually saw what happened to the characters, we were just told. Everything before that was perfect, but the ending means a lot. I don't want to judge it all for one moment, so I'll say I still loved it as much as hoped, but I guess I didn't hope it would be flawless. B+