Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

EX MACHINA (2015)

Well-received Sci-Fi/A.I. thriller (a tricky New Technology mash-up of THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM/’33 and SLEUTH/’72*) has ‘gone off’ faster than unrefrigerated fish in August. A debut directing gig for the strained intellectual stylings of screenwriter (and Kubrick wannabee?) Alex Garland, its studied art layout look is too idiotic & slow moving to take seriously. (Imagine a student graduation film mentored by Steven Soderbergh & M. Night Shyamalan.) The much touted Domhnall Gleeson is fine (if bonelessly thin) as the geeky computer programming wiz who wins a week’s stay at the ultra-isolated retreat of creepy master-of-the-digital-universe type Oscar Isaac. (Note to Mr. Isaac: you don’t have the smooth cranium for that near shaved-head look.) These two dance around deep-think issues between interview sessions for Gleeson and sexy replicant Alicia Vikander. Just how real is this robot’s cognition? By the last act, the story has boiled down to our favorite storyline (guy gets job because he’s not quite up to it, then turns the tables on expectations by coming thru with the goods), and is still a load of manure. On the other hand, kind of fitting to have so much artificial intelligence (the other kind) on display.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In addition to the worst use ever of Schubert's final tragic piano sonata (the one in B Flat Major), the film’s ‘original’ score nabs a near quote from the 'contact' motto in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND/’77; listen to the bell chimes in the main theme.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Many WAX MUSEUM adaptations have been made over the years, but the original two-strip TechniColor beauty from 1933 retains its distinctively odd tone. (Skip SLEUTH).

No comments: