If your brain did not simply melt from Wednesday’s much hyped premiere of the third “Sharknado” attack, which featured the crazed combination of Mark Cuban and Ann Coulter together in the White House, might I suggest something a little more up-market. “Ex Machina” has nothing to do with a storm that delivers sharks into major American cities, but it does offer an interesting double feature for the truly conflicted. Consider the combination like slapping a nice slice of Velveeta on top of a primo filet mignon – your steak never tasted so deliciously cheesy.
“Ex Machina” is one of this year’s best reviewed films, and all that glowing praise is well worth it. Examining technological singularity in a very intimate and creepy way, this film gives us artificial intelligence in the form of a beautiful female robot (played by this year’s “it girl” Alicia Vikander).
By contrast, “Sharknado 3” extends the mythology of the freakish storms that collect, for some unknown reason, sharks from the ocean and dumping them violently on dry land. Both films are self-aware science-fiction stories that plumb the depths of the human condition – man vs. machine and man vs. shark.
“Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!” opens with our hero Finn Shepard (Ian Ziering) visiting Washington DC to be awarded a medal by the president (played by none other than Mark Cuban). He’s joined by his girl April (Tara Reid), who is pregnant with their child and now sports a bionic arm – having lost her hand and part of the arm in the second film. But Finn and April can’t escape the Sharknado that follows them. In time, bloody chainsaws and all sorts of looniness transpires. It is not profound.
“Ex Machina” has Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) winning a company lottery which gives him a few days away with Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the CEO of something called Bluebook – the world’s number one search engine. What promised to be a long weekend away with the boss, quickly turns into a troubling experiment. Nathan has been secretly attempting to build an AI, and he’s housed it in the form of a beautiful female robot body named Ava. Nathan wants Caleb to perform something called the “Turing Test,” which will try to determine whether Ava’s intellect is indistinguishable from that of a human being. But when Caleb meets Ava, he’s immediately smitten. She’s not only sexy, but vulnerable. This may taint the results of the test. And the nerdy Caleb is caught between his desire to learn and his carnal desires.
Somewhere off the East Coast a storm is brewing in “Sharknado 3.” And the one that hits the White House in the film’s wacky pre-title sequence is just a warm-up for what is to follow. Part of the fun is picking out the celebrities that make cameo appearances. It has and no doubt will serve as an excellent drinking game. There is even an appearance of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. Unlike the previous films, the second one still probably ranks as the best, attempts to tell any kind of story have been completely jettisoned. And it isn’t a spoiler to say that the shark action eventually ends up in, of all places, space.
Meanwhile, the Turing Test in “Ex Machina” is not going well. Caleb’s feelings for Ava are deepening, and Nathan’s constant drinking and bothersome sarcasm create an unnerving situation. Is Nathan exploiting his sexy creation? And is that ethically defensible? The problem is that Ava is clearly passing the test, but this puts Caleb and Nathan at odds with one another. It is a scary love triangle that may not end well.
Talking about “Ex Machina” without spoiling it is difficult. And after seeing the film, you will want to talk about the moral and ethical dilemmas in depth. The film is a beautiful piece of science fiction on par with the best of the genre. Like last year’s marvelously strange “Under the Skin,” “Ex Machina” maturely deals with indentured bonds of sexuality and romantic love in a unique and fascinating fashion. What are the implications of Nathan’s efforts to create life? Questions of power and man’s control over machine linger when the credits roll. It makes you want to escape all the head-scratching, and that’s where “Sharknado 3” could be helpful.
Of sharks in storms and life in robots, think of it as a double feature evening of movie extremes that perversely bring balance to the world.