Aug 8, 2015
Ex Machina vs. CHAPPiE
Since I recently watched both films and they both deal with Artificial Intelligence, I thought it would be fun to do a this-versus-that movie review! Here we go:
SCORE: A+ vs. B
Ex Machina is about a “female” android. CHAPPiE is about a “male” android.
Ex Machina is a character-driven thriller. It’s thought-provoking, hard sci-fi on the level with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. CHAPPiE is a straight action flick.
Ex Machina is beautiful, classical music. CHAPPiE is rock-and-roll.
Ex Machina is still shots and ultra-slow zooms down hallways. CHAPPiE is quick pans and shaky-cams and faux-news reels/interviews.
Ex Machina is about a developed AI. Does it love? Does it have real consciousness? Can it lie? Does it want to be free? CHAPPiE is about once an AI first becomes self-aware. How does it learn? Does it have a mother and father figure? How does it feel about its maker? Does it have morals?
Ex Machina is about an android contained by a multi-billionaire entrepreneur. CHAPPiE is about an android living with gangsters in a defunct factory.
Ex Machina reminded me of watching Data from ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. CHAPPiE reminded me of the ‘Short Circuit’ films, but with a lot of F-bombs and guns.
Observation: In CHAPPiE, the robots as a police force echoes ‘Robocop’ in a way. And the Moose robot (Prototype 475A) is of the same ilk as ED-209 from ‘Robocop’.
SPOILERS:
In Ex Machina, the android becomes more human (in appearance). In CHAPPiE, a human becomes an android (by having his consciousness transferred into an android body).
Interestingly, at the end, Ava in Ex Machina has to put on skin to be naked. Then she dons clothes and escapes.
At the end, CHAPPiE has more empathy and emotions than the humans around him who are trying to destroy him. He ends up saving his maker (Dev Patel’s character) by transferring his consciousness into an android body.