Ex Machina
Directed by Alex Garland, Ex Machina follows Caleb, a programmer who wins a competition to spend time at a mansion with his boss, the CEO of the world’s largest internet company.
This year has been a big year for soft reboots for classic film franchises (which is saying a lot, considering franchise filmmaking has been a big deal for quite some time now). Some were hits (such as Creed, The Force Awakens, and Fury Road), some were misses (looking at you Terminator: Genisys), and there were some with divisive critical and commercial results (Jurassic World). Again, this isn't anything new; studios have been leaning more and more on franchises for a long time. But it is interesting that studios seem to be making a creative compromise. The biggest tent poles of this year are sequels that (for better or worse) take the franchise in a new direction.
It has also been the year of strong female leads (particularly in adventure/action films). Fury Road started the year off strong with Tom Hardy’s Max Rockatansky taking a backseat to the incredible Charlize Theron as Furiosa. Jennifer Lawrence portrayed the iconic Katniss Everdeen for the last time in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. And the year ended with The Force Awakens’ Jedi-in-training, Rey finally giving female Star Wars fans a character representative of their imaginations. It's always exciting when values exhibited at the movies begin to change. Change in the movies means a change in culture.
Introduction paragraph by Tannock Blair