Director Wally Pfister’s artificial intelligence blockbuster, Transcendence, is a beautiful mess.
Johnny Depp stars as Will Caster, a brilliant computer scientist killed by a mysterious anti-AI group. Before he dies, his equally brilliant wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) uploads his consciousness to the Internet, unleashing his limitless mind to do whatever it wants.
The movie is centered around the mystery of if the digital being is Will or an evil self-aware computer program, but the audience is mostly left wondering why we are supposed to care and what is going on.
Pfister made his directorial debut with Transcendence, which is made painfully clear. Actors with incredible range are confined to stiff roles. The entire movie feels cold and shallow where the producers were obviously and strenuously trying to appear deep.
The interesting parts of uploading someone’s brain and giving this intelligence limitless power are overshadowed by an uninteresting love story that is confined to a woman and Johnny Depp’s face on a computer screen. Where Her found its raw power, Transcendence is dull and restricted.
Even Depp, usually a powerful force onscreen, is confined within the limits of the film and cannot save the overall result.
Transcendence falls into the category of The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug in that the movie focuses more on the wow factor of the effects than the actual plot. Incredible scenes of regeneration take a front seat to actual dialogue.
The movie also stars Paul Bettany as Will’s best friend, Kate Mara as the leader of the resistance group, Cillian Murphy as a by-the-books FBI agent that somehow becomes part of the movie (I wasn’t really listening by that point), and Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman.
This film tries so hard to be the smartest technology drama in the room, but in the end, it fails. A boring love story is the main focus of a film with so much more promise. Depp and Hall will rebound, but director Pfister might be hurt by the flop.
Transcendence, while amazing to behold, falls flat when one looks into it for an imaginative story or a debate on artificial intelligence. The movie, like its main character, has no substance.
