Review of Transcendence (2014) by Pierre C — 25 Aug 2014

"Transcendence may have beautiful visuals and interesting ideas but it's downright boring".

Movie Review: Transcendence.

Date Viewed: April 18 2014.

Directed By Wally Pfister.

Written By Jack Paglen.

Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy,.

Cole Hauser, Kate Mara and Clifton Collins, Jr.

After being the cinematographer for most of Christopher Nolan's movies, Wally Pfister makes his directorial debut with "Transcendence", a sci-fi thriller that may have style, beautiful visuals and intriguing ideas but it is downright boring. It is full of technology cliches, some of it's ideas are right out of other movies and it has another phoned-in performance from Johnny Depp who at least doesn't have makeup on his face or a dead bird on his head.

"Transcendence" stars Depp as Dr. Will Caster, a researcher from Artificial Intelligence who gets shot by an anti-AI extremist group called R.I.F.T.. Even though he survives the attack, doctors discover that the bullet was loaded with radioactive material and he only has weeks to live. Will's wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) comes up with a plan to upload his brain onto a computer they've invented. Will's best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany) questions Evelyn's idea, saying if she uploads his consciousness on to the computer, it will not be Will but something more dangerous.

Will survives the operation and he insists to Evelyn to connect him to the Internet. Max tells Evelyn that Will is not himself but she ejects him from the project because she doesn't want to lose the love of her life again. Evelyn begins connecting Will to the internet and she goes to a remote desert town called Brightwood to set up the expansion of their project. Meanwhile, FBI agent Donald Buchanan (Cillian Murphy) and Will's mentor Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman) set off to find Evelyn and and they are also investigating the disappearance of Max. Max was kidnapped by R.I.F.T. and they want him to help them stop Evelyn and Will before they create a major catastrophe.

Now this movie does have interesting premise but doesn't have much of a payoff.

Rebecca Hall and Johnny Depp do make a good couple but they are no Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. The rest of the supporting cast don't have much to do especially Morgan Freeman. He's always a great presence on screen but he looks bored here and you can tell by the look on his face that he's just waiting to collect his paycheck.

I wonder what Johnny Depp was doing inside the computer, was he texting his agent telling him to find better scripts than this.

"Transcendence" is not artificial or even intelligent, it's just dumb. If Christopher Nolan were the director of this, it would have been terrific but as it is, "Transcendence" is just ridiculous.