Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Machine Blu-ray Movie Review

Ghosts

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 17, 2014

Writer/director Caradog W. James's The Machine belongs to the grand tradition of science fiction that explores the question of what it means to be human by positing an artificial life form that is indistinguishable from the real McCoy. Blade Runner , various iterations of Star Trek and the Isaac Asimov novel, I, Robot (as well as its less-than-faithful film adaptation) are among the previous travelers in this terrain. If nothing else, James deserves credit for being bold enough to compete with such distinguished company on a tiny budget. But James deserves credit for more than that. With an intriguing script that doesn't proceed in a predictable fashion, a talented cast and an inventive visual sense that takes full advantage of his limited means, James has made one of the most compelling and watchable low-budget sci-fi features in recent years. While The Machine makes many nods to its predecessors, it never feels like a retread. Rather than just recycle plot points from existing films, Caradog has thought up new uses for them.

The Machine premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, but it didn't appear in theaters until the following year, when it played in the U.K. in March and, in limited release, in the U.S. in April. Specialty studio XLrator Media is handling the American distribution, with an emphasis on Blu-ray, DVD and video-on-demand.

At an unspecified date in the future, the western nations have been plunged into depression by a cold war with China. Armed conflict is expected to follow, and governments are pouring resources into an effort to take drone warfare to the next level: robot soldiers powered by artificial intelligence. The leader in the field is British scientist Vincent McCarthy (Toby Stephens, Die Another Day), whose pioneering work in neuro-implants has achieved miracles in allowing soldiers with traumatic brain injuries to regain many normal functions. Vincent has also broken new ground with artificial limbs that accept commands from the brain—technology that will prove invaluable in the creation of a humanoid robot. Unfortunately, Vincent's implants have side effects. One such effect, which is consistent, causes loss of speech. Others are less predictable. In an opening sequence, an implant causes a disastrous reaction in a soldier named Paul Dawson (John-Paul Macleod). Throughout the film, Dawson's mother (Helen Griffin) will haunt the perimeter of the heavily guarded research facility where Vincent works, like a reproachful spirit that never lets him forget his mistakes.

Though Vincent is no great fan of the Ministry of Defense, it is the only source of major funding for his work, for which he has urgent personal motives. In an effort to find a new approach, he recruits a rising American star, Ava (Caity Lotz, Arrow), who has succeeded in creating an A.I. that can teach itself. Ava's work provides the breakthrough that allows Vincent to create a fully functional, thinking robot that he calls, simply, "Machine". As a tribute to Ava, he makes it in her image (and it, too, is played by Lotz). Though the Machine doesn't impersonate Ada, the dual role is an obvious reference to the great progenitor of sci-fi movies, Metropolis.

With the successful creation of the Machine, a three-way struggle begins over its fate. In one corner is Vincent, who believes the Machine should be considered a sentient being entitled to the same freedoms and rights as humans, including the right of choice. Opposite Vincent is his superior, Thomson (distinguished character actor Denis Lawson, who, as a young man, played Wedge in the original three Star Wars films). Thomson's job is to provide soldiers for the common defense, and he has no purpose for the Machine other than as hardware. To the extent it can't obey orders, it's useless to him and the experiment is a failure. The third corner of the triangle is the Machine itself, whose childlike inquiries into the nature of existence stand in sharp contrast to the lethal skills she augments on a daily basis in combat training prescribed by Thomson.

All of these conflicts occur in an atmosphere of paranoid security where many of the guards are themselves part machine, because they, too, are recipients of Vincent's implants. The guards report to a chief known only as Suri (Pooneh Hajimohammadi), who, as the audience learns early in the film, communicates with them secretly in a mysterious machine code that appears to be a hybrid of speech and telepathy and sounds like machine language. (In reality, it is heavily digitized Farsi supplied by Hajimohammadi, who is Iranian by birth.) Suri remains a mysterious character whose loyalties are unknown (although she has been made up to give her features a vaguely oriental cast). For a very long time, all we know about her is that she keeps tabs on everyone and is ruthless in enforcing loyalty among those under her command. But to whom does Suri herself answer?

The ending of The Machine is clearly one of several homages to Blade Runner, but I suspect many viewers will be surprised at Caradog James's choice to reference this particular element of Ridley Scott's classic. Not that much gets resolved, however. The question of what it means to be human will always remain open-ended.

The Machine Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Definitive information about the shooting format of The Machine was not available, but the film was finished on a digital intermediate, from which XLrator Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced. The cinematgorapher was Danish cameraman Nicolai Brüel, whose previous work has been primarily in commercials. Regardless of the capture method, anamorphic lenses appear to have used throughout, judging by the characteristic lens flares from source lights, which Brüel and James have incorporated into the film's visual fabric. The palette is chilly, with a predominance of blues, grays, whites and blacks, and most scenes have been lit with deep shadows, which works well for The Machine's sense of paranoia.

The Blu-ray image features solid blacks, strong contrast and very good detail in those portions of the frame where detail is meant to be seen. A few contrasting colors, notably red, stand out strongly against the predominantly cool background, and these are intense and well-saturated. Overall, though, the image has a softer cast than we are used to seeing in contemporary productions that have passed through digital post-production. This is no doubt a product of the anamorphic lensing and indirect lighting, but I suspect it also represents a deliberate artistic decision intended to underline the film's humanistic theme, in contrast to the cold, hard metal of a mechanized world.

The average bitrate of 22.98 Mbps is decent, if not great. The Machine has several fast-moving sequences, but it also has long passages of stillness and conversation where a skilled compressionist can conserve bits. In any case, artifacts were not in evidence.

The Machine Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Machine has an atmospheric 5.1 audio mix, which is effectively rendered on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA. Almost all of the film is set within the government facility where Vincent conducts his research, but within that compound are numerous environments, some large and echoing, others small and claustrophobic, but each with an appropriate sonic signature. The various robotic and synthetic tissue effects strike a good balance between the organic and the mechanized, and a few brief scenes of action receive an appropriate boost from the speaker array. The dialogue is always clear, except for the private communications among the implant recipients, which are intended to be unintelligible to the normal human ear. The score by composer Tom Raybould, making his feature debut, is appropriately foreboding.

The Machine Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Inside The Machine (1080p; 1.78:1; 15:34): For its length, this is an informative EPK, featuring interviews with writer/director James, producer John Giwa-Amu and actors Lotz, Stephens and Lawson.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.39:1; 1:32).



• Additional Trailers: At startup, the disc plays trailers for Ironclad: Battle for Blood, The Human Race and Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

The Machine Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Machine may not be a major entry in the science fiction canon, but it's an accomplished work by a filmmaker who has paid genre fans the compliment of taking them seriously. It's stylishly shot and, thanks to the performances of its two leads, leaves an impression that lasts past the end credits, which is more than can be said for most of the formulaic sci-fi churned out to fill the multiplex and the cable spectrum. Xlrator's Blu-ray is a fine presentation and highly recommended.