Ex Machina is a 2015 science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland (in his directorial debut) and stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. The film follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot. Made on a budget of $15 million, the film grossed $36 million worldwide. The National Board of Review recognized it as one of the ten best independent films of the year and the 88th Academy Awards honored the film with the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, for artists Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Williams Ardington and Sara Bennett. Garland was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, while Vikander's performance earned her Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Empire Award and Saturn Award nominations, plus several film critic award wins, for Best Supporting Actress.

The film only earned $57 million domestically, but it still topped 2016's Assassin's Creed, which earned $54 million in the US with a $240 million cumulative box office. And here's the thing: Tomb Raider was really good. Alicia Vikander's Lara Croft is really good. It's one of the best video game movies I've ever seen, and if you missed it at the movie theater, you should definitely check it out from the comfort of your own home. "Best video game movie" is a fairly low bar, but I genuinely enjoyed Tomb Raider as a movie---not just as a video game movie. It certainly has more than a few similarities to the rebooted video game franchise.

Video game adaptations have a long history of being, well … mostly completely terrible, thanks largely to the vapid efforts of one Uwe Boll. And even the most ardent Angelina Jolie fan would presumably admit that the Tomb Raider movies were hardly the Oscar-winner's finest hour. So why would Alicia Vikander, Hollywood It girl and current art house dahling, sign up to star as Lara Croft in a reboot of the action-adventure series? Were there no Marvel superhero parts available? Critics have reacted with predictable sniffiness to Norwegian director Roar Uthaug's debut Hollywood outing, with the movie rated just 50% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

I left the latest Tomb Raider film ready to hit the gym. This third adaptation of the video game franchise--and the first to star 2016 Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, who takes over for 2000 Oscar winner Angelina Jolie--is an adventure that's enthralled by what bodies can do. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider's Indiana Jones–esque protagonist, has long been a pop culture punchline for the disproportionate size of her breasts, and one of the many ways this Tomb Raider demonstrates self-awareness is by showcasing all the amazing feats that can be performed by that much-ogled physique. Like the Themyscira warriors in Wonder Woman who skirmished in ways that made sense for the female body, this Lara gets to execute fight choreography that looks and feels realistic for the figure we see on screen. Another point in this Tomb Raider's favor: It's a 180-degree turn from Jolie's smirking, statuesque pinup, a cartoonish male fantasy who practically haunted her ancestral castle in silky, flowing robes, like a superhot Miss Havisham.

Want to know how it feels to walk through a labyrinth? But at the nation's largest shopping center, the Mall of America in Minnesota, a chatbot can intervene before you find yourself wandering the premises like a lost child. By early next year, three humanoid robots will also be on hand to give shoppers a nudge in the right direction. On Black Friday, the mall gave customers a preview of the humanoid, Pepper, and on December 4th, it introduced a new chatbot designed by Satisfi Labs. The retail chatbot can field complex questions and even guide patrons to specific businesses or attractions in the mall based on their location.

Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander just got married. The "X-Men: Apocalypse" actor and the "Ex Machina" star, who are notorious for keeping their romance under wraps, secretly got engaged and later secretly tied the knot as well, according to E! News. The couple reportedly exchanged "I do's" in Ibiza on Saturday, October 14. Fassbender and Vikander were seen entertaining relatives and friends over the weekend. On Friday, Fassbender and Vikander, along with their families and friends, were spotted at the beach, where they enjoyed lunch and went on a boat cruise.

Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander just got married. The "X-Men: Apocalypse" and the "Ex Machina" stars are notorious for keeping their romance under wrap. According to E! News, Fassbender and Vikander had a secret engagement and they followed this with a secret wedding. The publication noted that the couple exchanged "I Dos" in Ibiza on Saturday. The "Assassin's Creed" actor and the "Tomb Raider" actress were seen entertaining relatives and friends over the weekend.

The first trailer for the new Tomb Raider movie is out, and if your relationship with Lara Croft began and ended in the 1990s, this is most certainly not the heroine you remember. Gone is the outlandishly buxom, clearly-designed-by-dudes lady Indiana Jones played by Angelina Jolie and a bunch of jagged pixels. In her place is a far more understated, realistic heroine. That's because this reboot is taking after another reboot--a reset of the game series, one that started in 2013 and ushered in a whole new era of Croft. Tomb Raider Won't Come to PS4 for a Year After It Hits Xbox You Need to Get to Know Ex Machina's Alicia Vikander That game, also called Tomb Raider because the world is a confusing place, looks a lot like the upcoming movie based on it.

The first trailer for the new "Tomb Raider" reboot was released Wednesday, and it seems like fans are enjoying the video much more than the poster that was released earlier this week. The first official poster for "Tomb Raider" was criticized by many who believe star Alicia Vikander's neck is photoshopped to the point where it seems unnatural. In fact, it seems like many fans are pretty excited for the new movie. The "Tomb Raider" promo video makes it clear that this is a reboot that will start at the beginning of Lara's story. The trailer shows Lara (Vikander) getting a message from her dead father.

The new British sci-fi film "Ex Machina," rolling into U.S. theaters over the next few weeks, is the kind of movie that discerning science fiction fans will want to seek out. Directed by Alex Garland (screenwriter of Sunshine and 28 Days Later), "Ex Machina" is a modern-day riff on the Frankenstein story, with high-tech labs, mad scientists and troublesome artificial intelligence (A.I.). It's got some thrilling twists, but "Ex Machina" is more about ideas than action, and it takes its science seriously. The setup: Computer coder Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is summoned to the remote research lab of his boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the reclusive genius founder of a ginormous tech company that doesn't rhyme with Google, but may as well. There, Caleb meets Ava -- a super-advanced A.I. housed in a super-advanced robotic body, played by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander.