The budget for writer/director Caradog W.

James’ sci-fi thriller The Machine was probably

equivalent to the craft services budget on Transcendence starring Johnny Depp, and yet
James’ film is a captivating, thought-provoking examination of artificial intelligence
while Transcendence is a mind-numbing, convoluted, and at times completely illogical movie.
The budget comparison is a gross exaggeration – James likely did spend more
than Transcendence‘s craft service budget – but the point has been made. Whatever it was
that first-time feature film director Wally Pfister was attempting to do with his big-budget
Hollywood movie, James actually accomplished with his low-budget independent film.

Toby Stephens in 'The Machine' (Photo Courtesy of XLrator Media)

The Machine is set in a dystopian world in which intelligent robots that can reason are being
developed as killing machines. In this brave new world, wounded war veterans are being
experimented on, with their lost limbs replaced by prosthetic limbs at the same time that
chips are implanted in their brains to take away their free will and make them into malleable
flesh-and-blood robots. Dr. Vincent McCarthy (played by Toby Stephens) isn’t involved in the
project for its military implications but instead is attempting to find a way to use the research
and the creation of an android with unparalleled mental processing skills to help his critically
ill young daughter. It’s Vincent’s boss who only sees the military aspect of the work and
who, once Dr. McCarthy brings in a young scientist (played by Caity Lotz) whose work could
lead to the breakthrough the military needs, takes the drastic step to ensure McCarthy’s
creation – ‘The Machine’ – will turn the tide and win the war. According to the boss it’s the
most technologically advanced side that will ultimately triumph, and The Machine is a nearly
indestructible killer.
The fact James’ film keeps the audiences’ attention throughout the entire running time is
due to outstanding performances by the two leads: Toby Stephens and Caity Lotz. Lotz
pulls double-duty as the young scientist who assists McCarthy on his quest for an android
that can reason its way through a discussion and as The Machine created in her image by
Dr. McCarthy. Lotz delivers a complex, multi-layered performance that’s believable, intense,
and at times frightening. As Dr. McCarthy, Stephens alternates between being a
sympathetic family man who will do anything within his power to help his child and a
scientist who should have known better than to experiment on soldiers to create a fully-
functioning, super-intelligent robot to be used to slaughter people.

The Machine asks all the right questions yet does so without any heavy-handiness. It’s an
intriguing and engrossing sci-fi tale with first-rate effects, a terrific cast, and a subject matter
that could have come across as traveling a well-worn path but instead feels fresh and
unique.
Movie Review: ‘The Machine’ Starring Toby Stephens and Caity
Lotz
0
BY REBECCA MURRAY ON APRIL 24, 2014
https://www.showbizjunkies.com/movies/the-machine-movie-review/

The Machine
Theatrical Review
XLrator Media; 91 minutes

Director: Caradog W. James

Written by Jared Mobarak on April 23, 2014

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With so many writers and directors keen to give us a look at a future ravaged by an impending war
between man and his creations, it’s always a breath of fresh air when someone decides to show the
potential of an evolutionary leap towards harmony. That’s not to say Caradog W. James‘ film The
Machine is devoid of violent carnage at the hands of bloodthirsty militaristic bureaucrats sitting
behind desks as their employed scientists crack the code of invincible killers beholden to their every
whim. Any bid for peace is born from war whether one that decimates soldiers until truce becomes a
final option or one where the threat of worldwide annihilation manifests a tenuous stalemate of
mutual salvation. As weaponry advances to nightmarish heights our question, “Can we control it?”
must change to “Can we trust it?”
These queries are given physical representation through two characters located on a secret Ministry
of Defense base in Wales. The former lies with Thomson (Denis Lawson), a by-the-numbers
political villain who cares more about the damage new artificial intelligence can inflict on England’s
current Cold War enemy China than its capacity to protect home. The latter remains on lead scientist
Vincent’s (Toby Stephens) mind courtesy of a personal need to play God propelled by life rather
than death. With a daughter caught in a perpetual state of seizure, he hopes this government work
unencumbered by budgetary constraints will bring him closer to a cure. So he recruits the best and
brightest, testing their AIs to find one worthy of taking that next step. Ava (Caity Lotz) proves both
the victor for peace and catalyst for destruction.

If you’ve seen the poster or trailer you’ll know Lotz also plays the titular machine, a fully formed
creation made possible by mankind’s greed and hubris pushing the boundaries of morality (with
seamlessly intuitive special effects). It’s a quick transition James’ writes in a way that allows for
exposition to subtly inject itself into our consciousness. Who Ava is, why she created the intelligence
she willfully gives to Vincent, and the future before her are rendered moot when you look beyond the
surface. She is simply the newcomer for us to sponge tiny details from like her introduction to a
hybrid security force consisting of brain-damaged war vets brought back to a mute consciousness
through mechanical implants, their ability to converse telepathically with one another, and
Thomson’s dismissal of their human beginnings as nothing more than tools for experimentation.

Ava is our conduit to look behind the curtain at what’s really going on—the last innocent piece of
collateral damage Vincent can endure before he accelerates his own motives. Everyone involved
has his or her own agenda that isn’t at first transparent, whether it be Thomson’s implanted head of
security Suri (Pooneh Hajimohammadi), test subjects like paraplegic James (Sam Hazeldine), or
the Machine herself. We sense a desire for revolution growing denser as the film goes on. We watch
Vincent’s patience wear thin as his daughter is hospitalized and his creation usurped behind his
back by Thomson. Tensions mount between controllers and controlees much like the impending war
we hear about pitting the UK against China, each side positioning itself until confrontation can no
longer be avoided. And a new question presents itself: What does it mean to be alive?

This is James’ thesis as so many forms of life are brought into the fold at differing states of
consciousness and capacities for empathy and compassion. There’s Vincent’s daughter Mary (Jade
Croot), a girl alive yet imprisoned within her body; the implanted soldiers given a second chance yet
enslaved by their “heroes” via psychological blackmail; and the Machine, a creature with emotion,
guilt, intelligence, and love that does not eat, breathe, or sleep. Are any of them less alive than the
next? Flesh, hybrid, or metal—each sees what’s happening around them and adapts. Thomson sees
consciousness as a threat to control while Vincent sees its autonomy as necessary for the future.
After all, what is more human than survival? Unless a machine can value its own existence, can it
ever value ours?

So here it is, trapped between Thomson and Vincent just as they are caught between it and each
other. One hopes to prey on the Machine’s lack of “life” while the other looks to prove it’s as real as
he. Consciousness and communication become the lynchpins to existence not as humans but as
beings beholden to no one but themselves. We create for maximum impact and then fear a potential
future where we lose control—this is the normal. James flips the conceit a bit by showing how it’s the
creation’s capacity to know when to dial its strength down that should scare us. Only when it allows
itself to choose which of us are worth saving does it wield unchecked power because the ones who
wish to control it are generally its most dangerous adversaries.

Beyond even this level brought to life by Lawson’s stereotypical government enterprise baddie,
Stephens compassionate father standing on a cliff’s edge, and Lotz’s monotone machine learning
rather than mimicking lies the true commentary on our current state of affairs. While the science
fiction concerning artificial intelligence and robotics thinking for themselves is present, there’s also
the question of whether our reality’s constant rise and fall of alert levels, terrorist attacks, and
preemptive strikes that could be construed as acts of terrorism by our victims means we’re even
living ourselves. We’re only two decades removed from a time when kids could play in their front
yards without risk of abduction and that domestic fear has only grown. It’s defense versus offense—
Terminator 2 reappropriated killer into protector then, and The Machine looks to remind us of that
lesson today.
The Machine is currently available on VOD and opens in limited release Friday, April 25th.