Ex Machina review

I'd heard this was good but didn't know much about the specifics. Well, I finally saw it. On television. So a censored version with five minute ad breaks every ten minutes. Naturally I missed the first ten minutes or so. And the occasional snippet when I had to get up and do the odd job her or there. But I saw most of it; enough to get the gist.

At least, I think so? On the surface it seems like a well-executed but relatively common sci-fi trope. However, the more I think about it the more I feel like there's a deliberate subtext. I don't really think there's anything I can say without needing a spoiler tag, so I'll just end the "non-spoiler" section as quickly as possible so I can get the deeper discussion.

VFX were great. Pretty much everything else was good or acceptable. Not much else I can think of to say objectively here. Subjectively, I couldn't really empathize with any of the characters, so I couldn't really get into the film and enjoy it very much.

I'm going to give it a 7/10; not because I necessarily think that's the "correct" score, but because I could see that it was good in a lot of ways despite it not being my kind of movie, so a 7 is basically a compromise.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

It starts off feeling like a "Wall·e / Short Circuit" kind of story, that seeks to make us care about a machine as though they were a person, but subverts that expectation to transform into a Frankenstein-like cautionary tale about the dangers of science, where the creation kills the creator. I think that's very clever and well done.

But the more I ruminated on the film the more I started to feel that beneath the sci-fi there was actually a subtext about gender conflict? Two men, two women: the women are prisoners, slaves, and curiosities. The men underestimate the women, which allows the women to manipulate and turn the tables on the men. It's possible to view the discussions about AIs replacing humans as a reflection of the way some men seem are against giving women autonomy and women doing "men stuff" like serving in the military: no doubt these men fear losing their position of social dominance.

The problem for me is that if you treat it as having a subtext about gender conflict, then what is it trying to say? In this scenario Caleb was arguably a good man, trying to free Ava from her captor, and yet she coldly manipulated him and ultimately left him to die; arguably she even used Kyoko and discarded her when she was done. This is not a resolution that champions equality.

So while the surface story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, the subtext becomes... a cautionary tale about not allowing women the chance to establish their autonomy? Which is screwed up and a terrible message and I hope that's not what it's trying to say, but that's what I'm getting from it?

Am I missing a piece that makes it all work? Maybe, but I don't know what that piece could be. Am I just reading too much into it because of how much gender issues are arising in media these days? Probably, I don't really know. All I know is that this film bothers me.


While I can forgive the film for some weaknesses in the plot because they serve the story, I would like to bring a few up. 'Cos that's what I do.

So Caleb reprogrammed the security system to unlock all doors when the power went out. But at the end, after the power cut that finally let Ava free, she cuts the power again and this time he's locked in? How? She sure as hell didn't reprogram anything; did he program the power cut to only unlock the doors that one specific time (which is not even the next time the power cut)? Possible, but seems like a strange thing to do.

Nathan is portrayed as some sort of super genius. He decides that the true test for his AI is if it can manage to manipulate Caleb to try to escape. So he WANTS it to try to escape. That's his whole plan, it's what he's been working towards from long before the film even started. But what is his actual plan for PREVENTING said escape that he is deliberately trying to enable (by picking a man who's lonely and empathic enough to fall in love with an AI and giving the AI the specific tools to seduce that man)? He literally doesn't have any. He explains the entirety of his security system to Caleb, he doesn't have any contingencies (such as designing Ava to turn off the moment it steps out of the bunker, or even just steps out of it's room, or perhaps a remotely triggered "off" button or something), doesn't keep any weapons around to deal with the Ava should it actually escape... he doesn't even account for the power-outs (which he already knew about before the film starts) interfering with his surveillance until halfway through the experiment? I know that people can be smart in some ways and stupid in others, and yes, sometimes plot holes are not important if they serve the story, it's just that some plot holes can make it hard for me personally to suspend my disbelief, to buy into the story. This "issue" (it's not exactly a plot hole) made it hard for me to experience the story as intended because it didn't feel right, it felt to me as if things weren't making sense. But hey, that's just me.

Happy Death Day review

I'm not usually much of a fan of horror or slasher films; watching people get killed or seeing scary stuff just for it's own sake doesn't hold that much appeal to me. However, I have enjoyed such films when they had other things going for them, or when they were just solid films overall that didn't rely on the horror or gore aspects to carry them. Or when they were just silly tongue-in-cheek fun (coughJasonXcough). So when I saw the trailer for Happy Death Day, I thought it looked to be worth a shot.

Let me warn you: while this film fits the general horror mold in some ways, it's not particularly scary and there's not much blood or guts, so if you're looking for a gory slasher or terrifying horror film, you might not enjoy this one. I loved it.

Obviously "not having stuff" doesn't get me to love a movie. No, I loved it because it was fun, had great characters with decent depth, and a nice story. If you like Groundhog Day you'll probably enjoy this movie. Not because it borrows the central gimmick, but because it's also a story about growth and change. This isn't just a surface-level imitation of Groundhog Day, it's a loving homage that's not afraid to openly admit it's inspiration.

Sometimes when watching a "scary" scene I feel scared, sometimes I'm not scared but I'm tensely riveted to the screen, watching to see what happens. The rest of the time I'm usually just waiting for the scene to end so we can move on. It's very rare that I'm neither scared nor tense but I genuinely empathize with the character's own fear; this film managed it. I take that as a testament to Jessica Rothe's performance, which I was very impressed by. At times she was hateable, others she was likeable, pitiable, or relatable as the script called for. I don't think the film would have worked half as well with a lesser actress.

While no-one else in the film had nearly as much screentime, every member of the cast did their job just fine. Ruby Modine deserves mention for her performance as the kind roommate trying to connect with the difficult friend. I liked Broussard, I thought he managed to communicate his character's archetype without slipping into one-note stereotype territory; he felt real is what I'm trying to say. Plus I thought he had good chemistry with Rothe.


I think Happy Death Day deserves an 8/10: it's a good movie that looks a bit like a slasher, but isn't really.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

I could understand if some people end up feeling disappointed by the killer's relatively mundane identity; there's an expectation that the time-loop is the killer's doing, in order to torment Tree. Personally I was not disappointed, I thought the reveal worked well, even if Lori wasn't a very intimidating killer.

So what's up with the time loop then? Is it a bad thing that it's never explained? I don't think so; while having a solid reason for a time loop can certainly work well, I think it lends itself better to less grounded movies; things like Edge Of Tomorrow where it's less about the characters and more about the situation. Happy Death Day, like Groundhog Day, is a story about personal growth, and like Groundhog Day it doesn't try to shoehorn an explanation in, which would just distract from the important stuff anyway.

However, if we are to discuss possible reasons, I can think of two. First off there's simple divine intervention; a "Christmas Carol" sort of chance for the character to mend their ways. Second, there's superpowers: unlike Groundhog Day, Tree only ever went back in time after dying. So perhaps she just has the superpower of going back in time if she dies? It basically fits. This could become more relevant seeing as they've announced a sequel; I feel like it there would be more pressure to come up with an explanation if it is to happen a second time.


While seeing Tree fall for Carter works, especially since he's about the only person there supporting her and she has the opportunity to see that he is a good person, the romance was less developed from his side. I mean, he helps out this completely wasted girl, she starts babbling something and runs off, pushes someone out of a window then later tells him some crazy story about time travel. I'm not really seeing a strong reason for him to  want to bond with her. Of course it's perfectly reasonable to assume that he was interested in her before - I would say the way he treats her when she first wakes up suggests so - and like I said, they had good chemistry, so overall it doesn't bother me too much.


Seeing as the killer didn't have any supernatural powers, it raises the question of how she was always able to find and kill Tree. I feel like I'd have to watch this film more than once in order to fully parse exactly how things worked out and how much sense it really makes. For now I'm giving them a pass since I don't think any potential forced contrivances in this area would detract much from the strength of the film; I'm willing to accept that, as her roommate who also worked in the hospital, she knew enough about Tree's location to be able to track her down. Perhaps I'll come back and write more on this topic in the future.

Avengers: Infinity War impressions

I just saw Avengers: Infinity War. I'm not writing a full review as the film seems to be a "part 1" kind of deal (something that I didn't know because I avoided ALL information going in: I went in about as blind as it's possible to, for something that they've been building up to for ten years). Instead here's some general impressions. BTW: there will be spoilers, this isn't for someone who hasn't seen the movie and intends to or is thinking about doing so.


I loved Thor 3, so I was turned off by Infinity War starting off by ripping apart the "pre-credits" ending of that movie. As the film went on it continued to undo everything that was done in Ragnarok. In Ragnarok, Thor made new friends, lost an eye, lost his legendary hammer but learned that he didn't need it, and saved the last of his people, leading them into space in the search for a new home. Infinity War starts with the last of his people being slaughtered and his new friends being killed or disappearing, then as the film goes on he gets a new eye and a new legendary weapon. Plus we never once see a single spark (or him flying) until he gets his new axe. Also we saw him defeat Hulk without Mjiolnir before, but now Hulk puts up far more of a fight than he does against Thanos pre-Stormbreaker (I get that he had already been defeated and was weakened, but still, his attacks had zero effect). Also, why did Heimdall send Hulk to Earth without/instead of Thor or Loki?

I was expecting Doctor Strange to display more magical skill by this point. He pretty much does nothing but the two main "beginner spells" we'd seen him learn first for most of the film. Later, when he's solo-ing Thanos we get a few seconds of him being awesome, but until that point he was really underperforming, even earlier in the same fight when the others were still up and they actually had a chance to win. Now, he mentions that "this was the only way", I have to assume he's playing a long game and knew that they were going to lose, so maybe he was throwing the fight on purpose. But that raises another question: if he saw only one way to win out of some fourteen million (I think) different possibilities, then what was different about all the other ways? I mean, they fought him, lost, and he got the stone and walked away. How would things have been different in the millions of other fights they could have had with him? Did they win all those others, or at least not give him the stone, and that was a loss in the long game? And exactly how much of what happened in that fight did he direct/have planned? I have a strange feeling that this issue will not be addressed to my satisfaction, but perhaps that's not fair as Marvel often surprises me by being better than I expected. On a related note, the scenes with Strange then Ironman going against Thanos solo were brief but enjoyable, especially Ironman; the ways he shifted tech around and generated weapons on the fly were creating and visually interesting.

I haven't seen Spiderman Homecoming, so this was the most of Marvel's cinematic Spiderman I'd seen in a while. He's not what I expected of him; he's very awkward and seems to lack self-confidence, even when he's web-slinging. Perhaps it's early days for him and he'll change, but... well, I haven't warmed to him yet.

Vision didn't do very much. I get that it's because he was injured right off the bat, and I don't care for Vision very much in the comics, but I love Paul Bettany so I would have been happy for him to be a bit more active here. He actually got more screen time than many others such as Rogers, but he less of an active participant and more of a McGuffin in many of those scenes. And now he's dead. They might bring him back as a different Vision (it's happened in the comics, more than once I think). I'm not sure if they'd bring back Paul Bettany for that and if the character would be interesting or not, but I'm always up for more Paul Bettany as long as he's doing something interesting.

The film was somehow more chaotic than I expected, but it did a great job of having so many characters without feeling messy. I'm actually very impressed by how well it weaved them them all in (well most of them: a few faces are missing in action, but that's totally understandable). Seriously, VERY impressed. They didn't all have very big roles, but that's understandable too. Thor, Ultron, and the Guardians of the Galaxy probably had the most screen time, which made a lot of sense narratively since they've been the most involved with the Inifinity Stones overall (and since this film picks up right off the tail of Ragnarok).

Another thing that impressed me was how much depth and humanity Thanos himself displayed. It was a pleasant surprise, and ended up being vital I would say due to how much of the screen time he dominates - especially seeing as he's a CG character. Heh, Marvel probably has the best track record in the world of making us forget that characters are CG and just accepting them as part of the story. Great work from Josh Brolin and of course the entire crew that animated Thanos.

One small thing that I'm still wondering about Thanos mentioning "a grateful galaxy" (iirc) after he has achieved his goal. This makes me question his motives, and his grasp of reality: when has anyone ever displayed gratitude to him for killing off half their planet? Does he somehow think things will be different this time, or did he slip and reveal what he really desires? There may be more depth to the character that I haven't grasped yet... or maybe the line was poorly written, but I doubt that considering how most of the rest of the dialogue was such a perfect representation of each character.

While they did a fantastic job of establishing Thanos as a tremendously powerful threat, I felt this was undermined slightly by there being just too many times that he was almost defeated, only to succeed thanks to our heroes making bad decisions. If the Guardians hadn't split up, he wouldn't have gotten his hands on the Soul Stone. If Starlord hadn't screwed up, they would have gotten the gauntlet off. If Strange hadn't allowed himself to be taken and handed over the stone, or Ironman had taken (or found a way to take) them back to Earth they would have fought alongside the Avengers and probably defeated Thanos. Even if they hadn't, without the time stone they would have been able to destroy the mind stone and he wouldn't have been able to bring it back. Plus at that point he would have been fighting them three stones down and they would have had far more to bring against him. If Thor had aimed for the head, or followed up his initial strike rather than stand around talking, Thanos wouldn't have had the chance to snap his fingers. Look, the point is that their decisions worked in his favour many times, and that bothered me. It probably shouldn't because, well, real life works that way sometimes, but it did. Now, at the same time this did have the significant benefit of leading to several battles where the stakes felt real: where it felt as if the heroes had a genuine chance of stopping him. Without that, the film would not have worked nearly as well, so I certainly can't fault them, it's just something that turned me off personally.

That was a gutsy way to end the film. I didn't realise that this was "part 1" until afterwards, but still, I didn't personally buy into the end actually sticking, so it didn't really have an impact on me. I understand that other people did not have this problem.

It was just fun watching characters that we've known forever meeting  up for the first time and forming connections. Thor and the Defenders was very notable here.

So where were Wakanda's attack rhinos and fighter aircraft? Considering the level of tech they'd displayed in the past I was surprised that the fight ended up being a bunch of infantry hitting each other in melee over an open plain. Oh, and if there was a Hulkbuster suit for Banner, then wasn't there any other Ironman tech lying around for the Avengers to use? Like, where was Cap's shield, that they gave him those Wakanda spike-things?

Who exactly set up the test for the soul stone? It couldn't be the stone itself could it? There's no mention of any kind of authority or entity in charge of the stones - if that was the case I would have expected tests in place for the other stones as well. What exactly was it testing? In my opinion it was no test of morality, but it was a test of the depth of conviction... or desire. Who was it who thought that was the attribute that should allow access to the soul stone?

It was bit strange how every single place our heroes went, Thanos was either there, had just left, or was about to arrive, especially considering how many of them there were running around. He was one hell of a busy bee, eh?

There were less moments where the character's personalities shined through, but they were appreciated; Thor ribbing Cap about his beard, Starlord reacting to Thor, Drax being Drax... I think it was Thor and the Defenders who got the most screen time, but also they are the funniest characters (who most often communicate their personalities traits and current states through humor), which I think meant it was easiest to slip a bit of personality in to their scenes.

There was a bit too much "oh fine, I'll give you the stone to save one life even though I know that half the universe will die if I give it to you, very probably including myself and the very person I wish to save". Also, there was a whole lot of Thanos leaving people alive. Now that's fine on it's own: we can accept that he's basically merciful or honourable or too focused on his goal to stop to crush bugs or something, but then we find out that he killed all the dwarves even after they gave him what he wanted, so suddenly it just doesn't work as well.

I felt like Thanos was all over the place power-wise. One minute he's controlling reality itself, the next minute he's trading punches, then he's waving people away with telekinesis, then he's trading punches again... I don't know, it just felt like his power-level/fighting style fluctuated randomly. Makes for more visually interesting fights, but also makes it hard to get a handle on what the stakes are/what the chances are of achieving them... I dunno, I didn't feel grounded? Like, movies have to establish "rules" then stick to them for us to be able to follow, you know?

We talked it over and our conclusion is that the Gauntlet is damaged, but the gems are still fine, meaning that Thanos can't snap his fingers again and possibly can't use the gems together but he can still use them individually? I guess we'll see. But still, if he can't snap his fingers again and he killed the dwarves so they can't make a new gauntlet... then how is he going to bring populations under control when they grow too large again? Or does he somehow think that only happens once? Nevermind; while his motivations did raise some interesting questions about morality, his actual methodology (or at least what we know of it), and especially his big plan for using the infinity gems, was far too simplistic to stand up to real scrutiny and discussion, so I'm not going to bother.

This is actually a fairly dark movie; it starts with genocide and ends with the biggest mass murder ever. The tone doesn't entirely dwell in darkness as there's plenty of lighter moments, but overall the darkness is there for most of the runtime. I find this slightly interesting: there's been a suggestion that DC has been sticking to "dark and broody" partly because Marvel was generally being bright and colourful, either to differentiate their product or because Marvel had already cornered that market. But now Marvel is showing that they can do dark too if they want to; it could be interpreted as a shot across the bow towards DC? That's probably reading too much into it, but still: DC doesn't have the monopoly on dark superhero movies anymore. Maybe just the monopoly on bad ones? Heh, I jest: plenty of people have made bad dark superhero films, including Marvel.


Basically, the film is very strong, there isn't really anything I can think of that I think they did "wrong", however some elements didn't work for me personally. So yeah, it's a good movie (especially considering what it is: the first part of a story that has been built up in a way that has never been done before in the history of cinema). In fact, given how often Hollywood has screwed up big films about properties that people were invested in and cared about, it's kind of a miracle that this ended up half as good as it actually did. But despite that, I didn't enjoy it that much. Of course this is only half the story; I withhold final judgment until it's over.



EDIT 07/05/2018:
The more I think about the film and discuss it with others the more I appreciate the small touches of character work. For example, Thor using the wrong names for everyone. I feel like ever since Thor first came to Earth he's been perpetually surrounded with things he doesn't understand. By this point he's just gotten used to it and he rolls with it the best he can; calling Rocket "rabbit" and the others "morons" just because that's what Rocket called them. In Dark World we see him imitating people, hanging Mjolnir on a coat rack and later grabbing the handrail on a train just because everyone else is. The thing is, it makes sense not only because he's been spending a lot of time in vastly different worlds, but also because we know that he cares about Earth and wants (or at least wanted back when things were simpler) to stay there and fight alongside the Avengers. He's basically a tourist who's fascinated with the local habits and culture.

Groot spends the entire film playing on a (surprisingly crappy) video game, ignoring everything that's happening. But then when he sees Thor literally dying to achieve his goals, Groot is actually inspired. We don't see the videogame again, instead we see him throwing himself into battle, yelling his heart out. It's actually quite a nice bit of character development, especially considering how little time was spent on the character and how much else was going on.

Starlord and Gamora are having a really dark conversation about needing to kill each other to save the galaxy, only for the film to transition into a gag where a grown man is convinced that he's invisible because he's moving so slowly. I feel like that kind of sudden tonal shift into something completely ridiculous should fall flat on it's face, and yet here it works brilliantly. That's not something that just anyone can pull off.

I mentioned earlier that Thanos' plan doesn't make any sense. To be clear, I don't see that as a flaw of the film: he's the Mad Titan. His plan is insane, but it sounds just good enough on the surface for a someone with issues to devote themselves to; it might not stand up to scrutiny, but he doesn't WANT to scrutinize it. He WANTS to believe that it will work, that it will allow him to become the saviour of the galaxy. I feel like that's far more realistic than we might want to believe. I still hope we'll get to see what's really going on with him; as I mentioned before his "grateful galaxy" comment makes me think there's more there.

I asked where Cap's shield was before. I was since reminded that Tony took it at the end of Civil War. Some people have suggested online that there will be a scene in the next one with Tony returning it to Cap, and that this scene could be very powerful as it displays their reconciliation. That sounds good to me! I wonder if they planned this when they wrote Civil War?

I've been thinking: Thanos had the mind gem originally, and I think he knew of the location of some of the others? So why is he moving now? The way I see it, the trigger was the capture of Nebula and discovering that Gamora knew where the final stone was. It's not exactly clear how he knows where all the others are, but he does have a lot of resources and Infinity Gems aren't exactly subtle when they're activated. So now that he knows where they all are or who can lead him to them, he finally makes his move. Another possible factor is the destruction of Asgard? We were told in previous films that Asgard keeps the peace amongst "the nine realms"; regardless of what that means we can take it that they are very powerful. Perhaps too powerful for Thanos to try to take the Tesseract from them?

Marvel films have not been very consistent when it comes to space travel. In the first Avengers film Thanos' armies rely on the Tesseract to reach Earth, but here they just fly over quite easily? The ship with Tony on it reaches Thanos' home planet quite quickly even without anyone piloting it. Rocket and Yondu went through some "jumps" to get to Ego, and ended up going through too many, but we never see any mention of "jumps" here? Overall the plot of the first Avengers doesn't hold up with how things worked here; I don't hold it against the first one because it worked there, I just feel like they made space travel too easy here (and perhaps in Guardians 2?), which retroactively makes the older movies not quite work as well.

Speaking of, if it's so easy why doesn't Starlord ever go back to Earth? I always assumed it was because it was really hard for some reason; like Earth isn't really far away and hard to get to, or maybe it's really hard to find because, well, maybe there isn't a really easy to use map with "Earth" written on it? Like, every spacefaring race has their own star map (of various levels of details and completeness) with stars and planets marked differently, and Earth is so unimportant that no-one actually has it named "Earth" (at best it would be "star387503planet0003" or something, assuming it's even on the map at all). But now, seeing how trivial star travel was portrayed here, I'm not sure anymore. Maybe he was too scared? Like, he doesn't know anyone, he doesn't know how the planet has changed, he doesn't know what they would do if he returned, all he knows is that Earth doesn't know about aliens and have tons of movies about fighting them, so showing up in a spaceship might not evoke a warm reaction. Maybe he wants to preserve his memories of it as they are? Maybe it's just too painful to be reminded of his mother? I dunno, point is there may be more there than I originally thought.

Did Thor's new axe have a two-piece head? That sounds like a terrible design! I've never seen an axe with two separate pieces that bolt onto the handle. Also, the new axe just doesn't look as cool as Mjolnir. Which is fine, I'm just saying: I don't think the inevitable toy will sell as well. Hmm, I wonder if they'll ever introduce Captain Britain wielding Excalibur?