It seems like every major film in the last year or two stars either Oscar Isaac or Domhnall Gleeson. So of course, it was inevitable that they would eventually be cast in a film together. (And then, later in the year, they both starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as well, thus furthering their quest for world domination.)

Both are good actors, but I have to question Domhnall Gleeson’s casting in this. Why do big budget films continually keep casting either British or Irish actors in American roles? If you want an American, hire a fucking American. There are plenty of them around. I can see very few instances where you’d be better off hiring a British or Irish actor in an American role. Maybe you’re making a film about a famous figure and an Irish guy bears an uncanny resemblance to the person in question. Okay, go and hire them. Or maybe a British actor is such a huge mega star that it just doesn’t fucking matter that he’s not an American. But for god’s sake, this is Domhnall Gleeson we’re talking about.

And if you really want to hire Domhnall Gleeson in your film, wouldn’t it just make more sense to make the character Irish? Eventually I forgot about the accent, but it distracted me for the first ten minutes or so; the American accent makes him seem more bland that he really is.

Miscasting aside, Ex Machina is a massively successful directorial debut from Alex Garland (writer of The Beach, 28 Days Later and Sunshine). It’s talky and almost devoid of action, but it’s all the better for it.

In a weird way, Ex Machina is almost like an old-fashioned film noir. Film noir often involves some schmucky guy getting hired by a mysterious man who isn’t all that he seems before being manipulated and misled by some femme fatale.

Ex Machina definitely follows this path. Our hero, Caleb (Gleeson), ‘wins’ a competition to spend a week with billionaire software genius Nathan (Isaac). Nathan then reveals that he has a humanoid robot that he wants Caleb to perform a Turing Test on. He wants Caleb to test whether the robot exhibits artificial intelligence that is indistinguishable from our own.

Before you know it, Caleb is hearing sweet nothings from the robot and is ready to drop everything for her (including his pants...probably). She seems sweet and innocent, so he’s horrified to hear that Nathan is mistreating her. Caleb’s conversations are observed by Nathan, but the robot, named Ava, can trigger temporary power cuts so the two can talk privately.

The strength of the film is that, much like Caleb, you feel sorry for Ava. She seems like such a sweet, harmless little thing that you too want to break her out of her ‘cell’. Her body looks half finished so she covers herself in wigs and clothes to appear more human. It’s a little sad and pathetic and certainly earns your sympathy.

But like a true femme fatale, she’s playing everyone. She tells Caleb that she wants to be with him, but once she’s free, she forgets all about him. She kills Nathan and then, without a master key for this high tech palace, Caleb is trapped in a room. Caleb bangs on the window and Ava can easily free him, but she’s totally oblivious to his plight. She doesn’t seem to be acting in a vindictive way. Instead she acts like a child. She’s completely narcissistic and self-absorbed. She’s so drunk with her newfound freedom that she leaves poor Caleb standing there, screaming like a lunatic. With Nathan dead and with no key, he gets to look forward to eating his own fist to survive.

But again, what a schmuck Caleb is. He think he’s going to ride into the sun with this robot and live happily ever after? Yeah, right.

I also feel that the film borrows subtly from Blade Runner (which, funnily enough, also borrows heavily from film noir). In Blade Runner, Dr Tyrell creates Replicants with AI. Much like an iPhone, they have a built- in obsolescence. After a few years, they die. They become furious with their creator and kill him. They want 'more life'. In Ex Machina, a similar fate awaits Nathan. His creation, tired of being imprisoned, wants to experience life and turns against him, stabbing him in the chest.

It’s actually kind of weird the way that Nathan is killed. He’s stabbed in the chest, but he’s stabbed in such a slow, clean way that it makes it seem like he’s made of butter. It’s a little bit odd.

But also in a nod to Blade Runner, Nathan has other ‘toys’. In Blade Runner, genetic designer J. F. Sebastian has a bunch of humanoid toys that keep him company in his apartment. Nathan meanwhile has a personal assistant who doesn’t speak a word of English. She’s very attractive and Nathan is fucking her. It’s then later revealed that she too is a robot. Which kind of figures for someone like Nathan who has a massive god complex. Why get sexually involved with a human being with real feelings and real emotions and who has real imperfections? You can just create a perfect copy who doesn’t speak a lick of your language and who picks up after you and you can then fuck them whenever you feel the need.

Of course, seeing as Nathan is a computer nerd, it goes without saying that the fuck-bot is Asian.

But the ending of the movie is fantastic because it’s truly chilling. This isn’t a robot that’s running around, killing people with laser eyes. She’s just like a child that has absolutely no moral compass. She might speak like a human and act like one, but it’s all an impersonation. She doesn’t feel bad for people. She can’t empathize. In one scene, she cannibalises Isaac’s other creations for parts. There’s no malice there but there’s also no feeling. It’s cold and logical. Which is why she leaves Caleb alone in that room to die. She can’t put someone else’s needs or feelings before her own. The only thing that matters is her. Over time we’ve evolved so that we care about other people. This helps us to thrive as a species. Anyone who acts selfishly is threatening the group. But a robot hasn’t had that. Which is why it would be so dangerous to do something like this. Intelligence without compassion and morality is a terrifying thing.

The opening scene of 28 Days Later shows a bunch of animal rights activists breaking into a laboratory. At first the lab seems pretty ordinary. There are caged animals, there’s a weasely scientist and undoubtedly there are some lousy coffee-making facilities. But then we find out that a bunch of chimps are infected with ‘rage’.

As is customary for a bunch of sallow, undernourished Morrissey fans, they lose all sense of reason and decide to free the animals. But then rather than hug its liberator, a deranged chimp decides to leap on the person’s face. Somehow I doubt this fitted with the activists’ plan. They probably foresaw hugs of gratitude, a stroll down the High Street to weep at the inhumanity swinging in the windows of butcher’s shops and a special playing of Bona Drag. They never thought they’d be meat for the apes.

But how apt is it to have animal rights activists bringing about the end of the world? I mean, if it’s not the mink ravaging the countryside, it’s the apocalypse. These lettuce-eating, people-loathing humanoids will press the self-destruct button with their knuckleheaded do-goodery gone do-badery long before the jihadists and neo-conservatives get their shit together.

An unfortunate survivor of the disaster is Jim, a bicycle courier. He awakens in a deserted hospital, unaware that virtually everyone around him has been consumed by a horrible virus.

One puzzling aspect of Jim’s survival is that he’s left naked in a hospital room. Since when is that standard hospital procedure? When do they leave you stark bollock naked? But then I guess that’s socialised health care for you. There’s no money for the little extras like hospital gowns.

But I guess Jim’s nakedness is meant to symbolise his rebirth in this new world and his vulnerability in it. For a brief time he will be a helpless innocent – he’s going to have to relearn everything he knows.

Much has been made of the opening sequence where Jim walks around a deserted London, but as enjoyable and wonderful as it is, it’s not really that creepy. I’m sure most Londoners have roamed the streets early one Sunday and have seen how deserted the city can be. If you go to certain parts, you literally won’t see anyone. And so therefore the sequence doesn’t quite have the creepy novelty factor that it aims for – I’m sure Londoners staggering back from a night club early in the morning have seen the quiet and the mess that Jim encounters.

All that being said, it is wonderful to see London filmed with such skill and verve. Somehow 28 Days Later manages to take most of the clichés of filming in the Greatest City in the World (buses, parliament, Piccadilly Circus) and turn them on their head. We see a bus turned over on its side, parliament looks over a ghost town and Piccadilly Circus has become a home to missing persons flyers. It’s nice to see someone doing something different with the city.

One of the disappointing aspects of the London sequence is that it has to end. All too soon Jim stumbles upon a couple of survivors and the story kicks into gear. I think the film could have sustained a bit more of Jim’s loneliness. Thankfully, though, the film doesn’t collapse like I Am Legend when other people turn up.

That’s not to say that the script is anything special. In fact, in several instances, the film succeeds despite the script. This is especially true when Jim hooks up with the survivors. The exposition is pretty clunky.

However, even the acting can leave a lot to be desired at times. Cillian Murphy is excellent as Jim, and Brendan Gleeson is excellent as always, but the girl who plays Hannah is pretty awful. Her line delivery is consistently atrocious. I also think that Naomie Harris isn’t particularly great. She has the intensity that her role requires but she doesn’t necessarily have the acting chops – her performance doesn’t always feel particularly natural. Harris is obviously trying hard but she isn’t always succeeding.

Some of the soldiers, too, aren’t particularly great. There’s a dweeby private who seems to be touched in the head (the character is far too buffoonish – when he gets stabbed in the chest his eyes bulge out of his head like he’s a cartoon character) and there’s a cockney who is incredibly exaggerated – he’s like an EastEnders character on crack. Having said that, the cockney is so atrocious and so vile and so over the top that his death is incredibly satisfying – Jim literally buries his fingers in his head.

But while some of the acting and some of the writing disappoint, the direction is always a joy. The film has a very dirty, gritty feel to it. The digital cameras totally take the sheen off the picture. But at the same time the energy Boyle brings to the film ensures that it’s incredibly cinematic. The film feels a lot more expensive than it is.

The action set pieces also impress. They all have lots of tension and excitement. And this is made even more remarkable by some of the bad writing that brings them about. For instance, there’s a sequence where the characters get a flat tire in a tunnel. Before driving into the tunnel Jim says that it’s a shit idea for them to take this route, and he turns out to be right. But even though Alex Garland tries to write himself out of the situation by making Jim self-aware, it doesn’t stop the sequence from being highly contrived.

Another contrived sequence is when Jim wanders off from the group into an empty building. It’s a terribly hackneyed way of building a shock, but somehow, because Boyle is making the film, it still manages to work.

The final act of 28 Days Later has been criticised in some quarters. People who love the beginning see it as anti-climatic. But I think that the final third works pretty well. Sure some of the acting is lacking, but the banality of the soldiers’ evil seems correct – given the end of the world, they’re desperate for pussy. And it’s fun to have the infected run riot in the soldiers’ base and kill everyone. It kind of becomes a black comedy in the end.

However, as enjoyable as the final action set-piece is, you still have to put up with a huge flight of fancy. The bit I’m talking about is when Jim manages to climb over a wall with barbed wire on top of it with both of his hands bound. How the hell did he manage that? Somehow he becomes an Irish Superman.

But in the end Jim actually becomes more like the infected. He ends up killing people with his bare hands in a murderous rampage. As always in ‘zombie’ films, the zombies are the underclass – they’re loathed, they’re mocked and they’re figures of fun (the soldiers keep an infected person chained up and take pleasure in mocking him – it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that he’s black). So in the end we’re almost asked to empathise with the infected. As violent and as base as they are, their actions are at least not premeditated. Their evil isn’t based on whims or prejudice. They’re slaves to their senseless bloodlust. Ordinary people on the other hand should know better. They should be rallying together. And so therefore the final triumph of Jim, Selena and Hannah is a victory for decency – the thing that will get us through hard times is belief in the family unit; no matter how hard things get we must always have the strength to think and feel.

Sunshine shouldn’t really work. It’s like someone has taken the elements of 2001, Alien, Event Horizon and Silent Running, stuck them in a jar, shaken them about and put it on film. But even though Sunshine is derivative, for the most part it works exceptionally well.

One of the reasons why the film works is the central concept. I love the idea of a crew having to journey to the sun. There’s something extraordinarily powerful about the idea. After all, in the absence of a god, the sun is the next best thing. It’s the source of life on our planet – it’s what sustains us. Without it we’re nothing. So therefore the journey to the sun becomes a spiritual quest. It’s both a journey within and a journey to the source of creation.

And the film works magnificently when it touches upon these themes. There are some beautiful moments, the best one being the scene where the crew get to see Mercury pass in front of the sun. It’s a reminder of how insignificant we are but how glorious life is. Simple things like this allow us to assess our place in the universe – it allows us to forget our petty concerns and gain some perspective. In the end we’re all circling this star and if its not there to shine its warmth upon us, we wont even be allowed to have our problems and our differences – our existence hangs on a thread.

I also like the scene where one of the characters visits the Earth room as a form of therapy. Here we see what all the characters are trying to preserve – the forests, the oceans; all the simple things that bring joy to our life. Yet this is what they may all be sacrificing for the greater good. They might not come home from this trip. They may never again feel the sun’s warmth from the safety of a few million miles. Therefore this may be the closest they get to be being back home. And there’s a nice little scene where Murphy’s character sends a message to his family. He tells them that if they wake up one day and it’s a particularly beautiful day, they’ll know they made it.

Another great scene is the one where the Captain perishes. The scene starts off as a kind of standard spacewalk sequence (characters fix things and speak lots of technical jargon) but as things go wrong and the Captain gets consumed by the sunlight it turns into something more than that. It becomes the most emotional part of the film. A lot of the credit for this has to go to the music, which is superb, but there’s also the way that the Captain looks into the sun. He knows he’s going to die and he knows he can’t look into the sunlight for more than a split second before going blind, but looking directly at the star, bare and unprotected, is the closest he’s going to get to looking into the eye of god. And so therefore it’s more than understandable that he does it. And the psychologist on board even asks him what he sees. Of course, even if he survived the Captain wouldn’t be able to answer, words wouldn’t be enough, but the moment is wonderfully filmed and played. Along with the Mercury scene, it’s one of the highlights of the film.

However, even though I love the first two thirds of the film, it goes downhill in the final act. All the interesting questions that the film raises are jettisoned in favour of a slash and stalk finale that is generic in the extreme.

But having said that, things start off promisingly enough. I like the use of subliminal shots of the dead Icarus 1 crew when the astronauts enter the ship. It helps build the tension and sense of unease. I even like the revelation of the burnt surviving member – he stands in the observation room, light streaming off of him like he’s a demon or something. But in the end he just becomes another religious madman with unbelievable cunning and resources of strength. And it’s even sillier in the face of the fact that he’s burnt to a crisp. Apparently getting charred gives you superhuman strength.

And it’s here that the film just basically becomes Event Horizon. In light of what comes before, it’s deeply unsatisfying. People get stabbed in the dark and the blood flows. Nothing new to see here. There’s even a wink to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece when one of the characters says that they might get picked off one by one by an alien. Yeah, I don’t really want a serious film to wink at me. And besides, if the last third of the film was as imaginative as the rest, there’d be no need for nods and winks as it wouldn’t be covering old ground. But even though it’s disappointing, Boyle is strong enough of a director to at least make the finale entertaining. However, you can’t help but feel that everyone involved didn’t have a clue how to end the film and that this is the result.

Another minor gripe is some of the acting. Chris Evans is pretty bland and square and Rose Byrne is even worse – she’s so incredibly wet. But such is the strength of the film’s visuals, its effects, its music, its production design and its ideas that the lacklustre ending and a couple of mediocre performances don’t impair it too seriously. It’s a very good film that could have been a great one.