Review of Transcendence (2014) by Rebecca M — 09 Jan 2015

Christopher Nolan's cinematography collaborator Wally Pfister should probably keep his day job! His sensibility for drama and narrative definitely need to be much more developed than they are here. What should be an engaging thriller is more a sleepy movie whose beats you can see coming miles and miles away.

No one seems very interested at all in being on this project. The film score is the usual sonorous exercise. The cinematography is unremarkable. The acting is uninspired. Johnny Depp is always only interesting when playing one of his eccentric characters. He sleepwalks through whatever else he is in.

The other actors are mostly from Nolan's stable of "usual suspects," like Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, etc. They just kind of do their lines and exit the screen.

There should be something of real debate here about how far technology should be allowed to go unabated. But, instead, the anti-technology terrorists here are just violent thugs. So, you don't care at all about their stance. They just brutally beat, kill or kidnap people. A very strange idea on how to portray them, because you can never care for a second about their point of view. Kate Mara is the terrorist leader, and is so grating, so irritating, that you so wish somebody would plug her...throughout the entire movie! Plus, (SPOILER) all the other characters, except for Rebecca Hall, go over to the terrorists' side without a single question. (END SPOILER).

There are some good twisty moments here and there, but they are presented in as unenthusiastic a way as possible. And, the movie ends with a big action finale that undercuts anything that could have been interesting. Plus, endless plot holes, and the usual "very smart" characters who all of a sudden become complete idiots (i.e. walking into traps, etc.).

You definitely have a feeling that the studio bosses insisted on all the standard action-movie bloat and wanted to make sure that any of the science in the film was severely undercut. Intelligent movies are all but forbidden when coming from Hollywood.

A real disappointment, to put it mildly! Hopefully, there will be someone who can take this concept and actually do something with it. But, this isn't that movie. Not at all.