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THE PEMBROKESHIRE HERALD FRIDAY JANUARY 30 2015


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Captivating sci-fi with a heart


Captivating: best in Sci-Fi


by Johnny Vaughan EX-MACHINA: Latin for ‘out


of the machine’ (a very apt title). I won’t lie, I have been waiting for this film with unabated excitement and anticipation for months. Alex Garland’s first piece of direction had to be good didn’t it? After all, this was the guy who wrote the novel ‘The Beach’ and the scripts for ’28 Days Later’, ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Dredd’. Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson) is a


brilliant encoder who ends up winning a competition to spend a week at the


home/research complex of his


reclusive genius boss, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who has made his fortune having developed the world’s most successful search engine. Once he gets there he realises that, rather than just hang out with his eccentric MD, he is tasked to assess what Nathan claims is a self-aware android, an A.I, AVA (Alicia Vikander); an assessment that must determine whether or not this robot can develop its own thought processes and emotions. It isn’t a new theme, however, very


rarely is it done well in film format; one hand will suffice. Isaac Asimov, the great science fiction writer, scribed many novels exploring this conceit and a good film adaptation of his work


was ‘Bicentennial Man’ that asked the question as to when, or indeed if, it is possible for a robot to become human. Importantly, that narrative made great play of the development of emotions as the key to A.I, for surely emotional intelligence is the one thing that separates human kind, not just from robots, but also from other living species? This is also very much the idea behind ‘Ex-Machina’, but there is a whole lot more going on in this breath-taking film; a whole lot more. At times sinister and foreboding, and throughout tense, this is what science fiction is all about. There is a marvellously considered build up to the final gut busting scene and reveal, making it all the more shocking. As Caleb finds his movements around the complex tracked and filmed, along with his sessions with AVA recorded and scrutinised, it is clear from the start that he is himself part of an elaborate experiment set up by Nathan. Oscar Isaac plays the creepy egotistical scientist with devilish charm, sneakily pretending to be Caleb’s ‘best bud’ whilst clearly using him as a mere pawn for his own agenda. His relaxed nonchalant manner is mirrored by the film’s pace but you just know it is going somewhere unpleasant, and in that it doesn’t disappoint. The real cut and thrust of this movie is the relationships


between its three lead characters and the resulting drama is a direct effect of how each one interacts with the other, not least Caleb’s increasing infatuation with the stunning AVA, who it appears is mutually attracted to her human counterpart. It reminded me of Decker’s relationship with Rachel in ‘Blade Runner’, though of course that was a replicant rather than a robot, but a synthetic human nonetheless. I don’t often mention scores, even


though they are such a vital component of any great movie, but ‘Ex-Machina’ has one worthy of note. Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury have done an incredible epic score-electronica here, and at times it reminded me of the works of Vangelis or Tangerine Dream, proving it’s about time more sci-fi’s had electronic scores rather than the big orchestral suites that are surely best saved for blockbuster dramas. What you get with this film is of


a piece provocative, thoughtful


cinema - a fine script, three terrific central performances and a measured crescendo driven pace. It is dark, edgy, sexually tantalising and genuinely alarming. It really is about as good as sci-fi gets and, thus far, is easily the best film of 2015. You never know - maybe it will stay there for the next 11 months.


Album review: Ex Machina (Soundtrack Album)


was the incredible sweeping synths of Jon Vangelis’s Blade Runner score, as the opening scene of a vista of a future metropolis explodes onto the screen. Sic -fi and synths are a marriage made in heaven.


Imagine my delight then when THE GREAT German


electronica artists, Tangerine Dream, along with Vangelis, formulated an opinion in me which I have long since held - that electronic music has a huge part to play in movie scoring. Especially in Sci-fi.


One of my earliest memories of this


attending, not only the best sci-fi film in years, but also the best scored sci-fi film in at least 3 decades, if you discount the TV reboot of ‘Battlestar Galactica’. I am of course referring to Alex Garland’s brilliant movie, ‘Ex-Machina'. Ben Salisbury


and Geoff Barrow have


created a simply sensational music suite. It works as the audio to the visual but it is also a cracking listen as an autonomous product.


I love electronic music be it


dance related (techno in particular) or merely synths for the sake of it. There


is much to commend in this album as it moves from dark moody almost ambient textures in ‘The Turing Test’, ‘Watching’, and ‘Ava’, to the far more sinister and frenetic pace of ‘Hacking’. Throughout is the customary film theme- thread which culminates in the title sequences, and very memorably riffed, ‘Bunsen Burner’.


This album is perfect if you want to lay back in a hot bath, surrounded by sandalwood scented candles, with a nice ice-cold glass of Chablis. Close your eyes as the sound-scaping takes you through the glaciers surrounding the science complex, then in through the maze of labs and test rooms and up close to the perfect A.I. It’s a mood piece and it works. Who needs lyrics and second rate singing? Welcome to the future.


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