The Machine

R

Released Apr 8, 2014

1h 31m

Sci-Fi

Mystery & Thriller

List

79%

33 Reviews

Tomatometer

46%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Two scientists fall in love while they are creating the world's first self-aware artificial intelligence. The work goes terribly wrong when the British military steals their technology to make a robotic weapon.

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Critics Consensus

The Machine proves an audacious debut for writer-director Caradog James and a solid entry in modern British sci-fi, with thematic heft to match its genre thrills.

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Kate Muir

Times (UK)

The result is a tad predictable.

Jan 2, 2018

Full Review

Robert Abele

Los Angeles Times

"The Machine" percolates with an elegantly palpable sense of wonder and danger.

Apr 24, 2014

Full Review

Dennis Harvey

Variety

"The Machine" works modestly well, but still wobbles trying to balance its "thinking man's sci-fi" aspirations against the need to placate less adventurous fans via standard action content.

Apr 23, 2014

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

The Machine is a highly enjoyable and brooding sci-fi flick in the philosophical vein of Blade Runner, with a smattering of other similarly minded or styled classics.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 30, 2019

Full Review

Cleaver Patterson

CineVue

Here, the actions and objectives of the government manufactured robots are as volatile and unpredictable as those of the scientists and officials who create them, resulting in scenarios which are as shocking as they're unexpected.

Rated: 4/5

Mar 8, 2019

Full Review

Frank Ochieng

SF Crowsnest

Thankfully, the film generates its brand of suspense courtesy of smart and intriguing performances contained in a compartmentalized caper

Rated: 2.5/4

Nov 11, 2018

Full Review

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Axel X

"The Machine" is one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a long time. I didn't know that this was an indie sci-fi film. These are the types of movies that I really enjoy seeing the most. Because, not to sound like a hipster, but in mainstream movies like "The Avengers" or "The Fast and The Furious" that spend millions of dollars on special effects it's refreshing to see a movie where you can tell that they have a limited budget at their disposal and yet they're still able to make the movie look great. This is not to say that I don't like "The Avengers" and yes I enjoyed The Fast and the Furious as movie junkfood for myself, but it's interesting to see how people decide to make their movies when they have such a low budget. One such movie that I personally enjoyed a lot despite all its flaws was a movie called "Ink." Which is a movie that I would highly recommend despite it's numerous plot holes and really bad editing. "The Machine" has flaws of its' own, but the director Caradog W. James made a really good movie here and for his first try I thought it was great. I feel almost as though the director of "Ex Machina", which was a good movie as well, stole a lot of the ideas from this movie. They both have a plot that centers on Artificial Intelligence, they ask the question how safe is artificial intelligence, the robots with the artificial intelligence in both movies are female AND they're both named AVA. And at this point I'm totally convinced that Alex Garland stole a lot of what he wrote in Ex Machina from "The Machine." But I don't really mind because both movies were entertaining and engaging in their own ways. With "The Machine" though the biggest difference is in how the main robot interacts with the world. Because by nature AVA in "The Machine" responds to the world with emotions that while they seemed fake to me, in the end AVA proved that she had feelings for the person that created her. And in the movie "Ex Machina" in the end that Ava really didn't care about her creator or the guy who was doing the Turing test on her. One thing I really liked about "The Machine" was that a lot of the scenes were very well lit in a way that which made the settings look even better than they probably were. And the special effects that were used looked amazing. There was this one scene that which I particularly enjoyed in which the machine had broken out of its containment and was naked. However we couldn't really see anything (which was rather disappointing), but it was just a beautiful scene when she started dancing and the machinery inside of her was lighting up as she danced. And the light given off from the laboratory was a blue color while the color coming from her was a red color. And I thought that was a beautiful scene of contrasting colors. If I had to choose between "Ex Machina" and "The Machine" as to which movie was better I think I would have to go with "The Machine" mainly because "The Machine" unlike "Ex Machina" actually had a happier ending and plus if Alex Garland did steal the idea of "The Machine" and put them into "Ex Machina" I would say that it was wrong of him to do that no matter what the result of "Ex Machina" were. Even though "Ex Machina" was a fantastic movie, this one was better.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/24/24

Full Review

Tim O

Watched this and 2015's 'Uncanny' back to back: Neither one held up as particularly memorable or likely to stick around for future rewatches...

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/18/23

Full Review

Joe W

Maybe worth watching. Maybe not. Movie is a bit like the much better Ex Machina. Here characters are shallow and and behave so very inconsistently in order for the plot to work.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

10/21/23

Full Review

Liam D

A very interesting Sci-Fi Thriller with some great performances by Toby Stephens (Severance, Possession) and Caity Lotz (The Pact 2, Small Town Crime)

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/07/23

Full Review

bill p

Nice, sympathetic tale reminiscent of Phillip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" When would a robot be "alive?" Could self-consciousness exist in a non-organic entity? Fun stuff, plus some action and pathos.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

while i did enjoy it, i just wanted more to happen. it's a slow start, but you can tell it's building up to something bigger, which is exciting, but then when you're expecting absolute terror to reign down on everybody, 1 guy's skull gets crushed & that's it. so it was a pretty anti-climactic solution with a rather rushed ending afterwards. if you don't have anything better to do it's a decent watch, but i wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

Full Review

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Caradog W. James

Director

Caity Lotz

Ava

Toby Stephens

Vincent

Denis Lawson

Thomson

Lee Nicholas Harris

Implant Soldier Harris

Sam Hazeldine

James

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Synopsis

Two scientists fall in love while they are creating the world's first self-aware artificial intelligence. The work goes terribly wrong when the British military steals their technology to make a robotic weapon.

Director: Caradog W. James
Producer: Jamie Carmichael, Paul Eyres, Robert Graham, Caradog W. James
Screenwriter: Caradog W. James
Distributor: XLrator Media
Rating: R (Violence|Some Language)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 8, 2014, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 11, 2017
Runtime: 1h 31m

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