Novelist, producer, and director Alex Garland‘s highly anticipated sci-fi film Ex Machina is raking in critical acclaim and ★★★★★ reviews from around the world. Adding even more weight to the film’s kudos this morning is an exceptionally rare film review from the prestigious scientific trade publication New Scientist. “It’s a rare thing to see a movie about science that takes no prisoners intellectually. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is just that: a stylish, spare and cerebral psycho-techno-thriller, which gives a much-needed shot in the arm for smart science fiction,” writes Anil Seth of New Scientist. “In his directorial debut, Garland has managed to capture the thrill of this adventure in a film that is effortlessly enthralling, whatever your background. This is why, on emerging from it, I felt lucky to be a neuroscientist. Here is a film that is a better film, because of and not despite its engagement with its intellectual inspiration.”
And in his equally glowing review for The Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton writes: “It might be his finest work as a writer so far, but Garland also suggests that he’s no slouch behind the camera either. He mostly avoids first-time-helmer showiness (beyond a few misjudged, distracting computer’s-eye-view shots) in favor of a rigorous, meticulous command of mood and atmosphere that’s reminiscent of David Fincher, leaving you consistently unsettled … It’s one of the headiest and most impressive sci-fi debuts since MOON, and if we see more than a handful of movies better than it across the next twelve months, 2015 will be a terrific year.”
Alex Garland (born 1970) is the author of the novels The Beach (1996), The Tesseract (1998), and The Coma (2004). He is the screenwriter behind 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2010), and Dredd (2012). Ex Machina is Garland’s directorial debut, and he also wrote the screenplay. Ex Machina is playing in UK theatres now, and is set for release in North America on April 10, 2015.
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