Ex Machina(2015)

R
Rated R for graphic nudity, language, sexual references and some violence
1h 48m

Release Date: Apr 10, 2015 | Wide

A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I.

Official Website

Releases

Original Release | Apr 10, 2015

2024 Re-release (IMAX) | Mar 27, 2024

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Box Office Results

All Releases (2)
Total US & Canada:
$25,442,958
Total International
$11,951,671
Total Worldwide:
$37,394,629

Total US & Canada:
$25,442,958
Total International
$11,426,456
Total Worldwide:
$36,869,414

Current Showtimes

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(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Alex Garland
Director

Tiffany Pisani
Actor

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital,SDDS,Datasat

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: United Kingdom,United States

Language: English

Summaries

Plot Summary

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at the search engine company Blue Book, wins an office contest for a one-week visit to the luxurious, isolated home of the CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Nathan lives in the middle of nowhere, in a vast estate surrounded by untouched jungles, snow peaked mountains and other insurmountable natural barriers. The only way to get to his home is to fly there by a helicopter. The whole area has no cellular network. Caleb is dropped a few miles away from Nathan's house and he has to walk all the way there. Nathan lives there with a non-speaking servant named Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), who, according to Nathan, does not understand English. Caleb has been given a security key card which only allows him access to certain areas of the house, with others being off limits. Nathan explains that his house is a research facility and most of it is hosted below the ground to maintain secrecy. He reveals that the house has enough fiber optic cable to reach the moon and lasso it. Nathan also makes Calbe sign an NDA.Nathan reveals that he has built a humanoid robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) with artificial intelligence. She has already passed a simple Turing test (a human interacts with a computer, without being able to find out that it is a computer), and he wants Caleb to judge whether she is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness as well as whether he can relate to Ava despite knowing she is artificial.Ava has a robotic body with the physical form and face of a woman and is confined to her apartment behind a glass wall. Caleb can see signs on struggle on the glass, meaning that in the past perhaps Ava tried to escape captivity. Ava proposes a friendship to Caleb and says that in a friendship both parties have a right to know about each other. Caleb says that he is 26 years old and not married. He lives in a small apartment, which is 5 minutes away from the office and 5 minutes away from the ocean. Ava knows that Blue Book is the world's most popular internet search engine, accounting for 94% of all internet search queries. Caleb grew up in Portland Oregon and had no brothers and sisters. His parents were both high school teachers, who died in a car accident. During their talks, Caleb grows close to her, and she expresses both a desire to experience the world outside and a romantic interest in him, which Caleb comes to return.Ava can trigger power outages that temporarily shut down the surveillance system that Nathan uses to monitor their interactions, allowing them to speak privately. The outages also trigger the building's security system, locking all the doors. During one outage, Ava tells Caleb that Nathan is a liar who cannot be trusted. Nathan shows Caleb the lab where he created Ava. He says that he hacked the world's cell phones and directed their voice and video data through Blue Book, to gather enough data to train Ava's ability to recognize facial and voice modular expressions. Ava's brain is made up of structured gel.In their 3rd session, Ava dresses up as a normal girl and wants to know if Caleb is attracted to her. Ava can see through Caleb's micro-expressions that he is indeed attracted to her. Caleb is unnerved by Ava's sexuality and learns from Nathan that Ava has the necessary body parts to engage in and enjoy sex. Nathan also insists that he never programmed Ava to like Caleb.Caleb believes that he was selected by Nathan for the test and did not win a competition. Nathan agrees and says that he looked for the most talented coder in the company, who could ask Ava the right questions. Caleb grows uncomfortable with Nathan's narcissism, excessive drinking, and crude behavior toward Kyoko and Ava. Nathan uses Kyoko for sex, and visits Ava's room to destroy the drawings she is making to show Caleb for their next session. Caleb learns that Nathan intends to upgrade Ava after Caleb's test, wiping her memory circuits and in effect "killing" her current personality in the process.After encouraging Nathan to drink until he passes out, Caleb steals his security card to access his room and computer. He alters some of Nathan's code and discovers footage of Nathan interacting with previous android women who were also held captive. Kyoko reveals to him that she too is an android by peeling off parts of her skin. Caleb later cuts open his own arm to determine if he himself is an android.At their next meeting, Ava cuts the power. Caleb explains what Nathan is going to do to her, and she begs him for help. He informs her of his plan: he will get Nathan drunk again and reprogram the security system to open the doors in a power failure instead of locking them. When Ava cuts the power, she and Caleb will leave together, locking Nathan in behind them. She later encounters Kyoko for the first time when Kyoko enters her room.Nathan reveals to Caleb that he observed his and Ava's 'secret' conversations with a battery-powered security camera. He says Ava has only pretended to have feelings for him, who was deliberately selected for his emotional profile so he would try to help her escape. Nathan says this was the real test all along, and that by manipulating Caleb successfully, Ava has demonstrated true consciousness.Moments later, when Ava cuts the power, Caleb reveals that he had suspected Nathan was watching them, so he had already modified the security system when he was previously passed out. After seeing Ava on the security cameras leave her confinement and interact with Kyoko, Nathan knocks Caleb unconscious and rushes to stop the two robots escaping.Ava attacks Nathan but is overpowered and damaged, when Kyoko appears and stabs Nathan. Nathan hits Kyoko in the face, disabling her, when Ava gets up and stabs Nathan a second time, killing him shortly after. Ava finds Caleb and asks him to remain where he is while she repairs herself with parts from earlier androids, using their artificial skin to take on the full appearance of a woman.Instead of returning to Caleb however, Ava leaves the area using Nathan's ID card to unlock the glass security door, which locks behind her, leaving Caleb trapped inside. Ignoring Caleb's pleas, she glances briefly at the bodies of Nathan and Kyoko before leaving the facility. She then escapes to the outside world in the helicopter meant to take Caleb home. Arriving in a city, she blends into a crowd.

Storyline

Caleb, a 26 year old programmer at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl. — DNA FILMS A junior programmer working at the company that runs the world's most popular search engine wins a company lottery. The prize is a week at the CEO's estate/research facility. When he gets there he discovers that the boss has been working on androids with superior Artificial Intelligence. The programmer's job is to test how "human" the android is. What develops is a manipulative game between the android and the programmer. — grantss Caleb Smith a programmer at a huge Internet company, wins a contest that enables him to spend a week at the private estate of Nathan Bateman, his firm's brilliant CEO. When he arrives, Caleb learns that he has been chosen to be the human component in a Turing test to determine the capabilities and consciousness of Ava, a beautiful robot. However, it soon becomes evident that Ava is far more self-aware and deceptive than either man imagined. — Jwelch5742 The eccentric CEO of a hi-tech company recruits a brilliant computer programmer to evaluate his latest revolutionary invention: Ava, an android with unparalleled Artificial Intelligence capabilities. After all, Ava is a masterpiece equipped with cutting-edge, never-before-seen technology. However, the two men are unaware that they are trying to test the limits of a sophisticated, ever-evolving machine. As they attempt to assess the humanoid's capacity and understand its boundaries, the scientists soon find themselves delving into uncharted waters. But knowledge always comes at a price. What happens if humankind isn't ready for technological perfection? — Nick Riganas