Movie Review: 'Transcendence'

TranscendenceUA ActionDirector Wally PfisterCast Johnny Depp Rebecca HallRatingWhen I walked in to watch Transcendence I had three major reasons to be excited about the film ndash it is produced by Chris Nolan directed by Nolanrsquos DOP Wally Pfister and it is a sciencefiction movie about artificial intelligence gone wrong Twenty minutes into the film a single thought crossed my mind and it was something I could not believe was true ndash this is one of the worst if not the worst sciencefiction movie I have ever seen in my entire lifeThink of Transcendence as a science experiment where a bunch of really smart people get together and try to create something unique But the people involved are so smart they throw their ideas around and end up talking over one another and the guy anchoring the meet has no skill to moderate the discussion and formulate any coherent plan So what is ultimately created is a hodgepodge of seemingly smart ideas put together in an incompatible box sealed with a lid that doesnrsquot fit This is what Transcendence is Itrsquos a gigantic waste of money and resources helmed by a very skilled technician who unfortunately has no clue about how to put things togetherHere we have super scientist couple The Casters Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall who are on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could change the world But naturally since lsquoscience is scaryrsquo therersquos a gang of terrorists that somehow realise that this discovery could end the world and decide to kill Caster Mrs Caster discovers AI in her hubbyrsquos lab and decides to transport his brain into it so that he can live forever As expected Depp becomes lsquoHimrsquo and tries to do all kinds of unethical things with his newfound powerBefore he became a pirate Johnny Depp appeared in this awful scifi horror called The Astronauts Wife It was a Xerox copy of Species and a much worse movie It feels like with Transcendence he has revisited that movie because it just clumsily recycles ideas from other better films Like that movie it is also horribly acted directed scripted and edited Like that movie it has a great actress as the female lead who is afraid of her husband turning evil and spends the first half rubbishing others whorsquore warning her against him and the second half mewling and running away from him whilst internally fighting with the love she harbours for himNothing wrong with the plot but itrsquos the execution that will make you tear your hair apart Every scene is appallingly staged Everyone overacts Every plot point is built up to reveal something huge with rousing lsquothriller musicrsquo and nothing happens Everything is cheesy The dialogues are laughable The film tries to debate the ethics of sentient intelligence and falls hilariously flat because the discussions are as smart as a group of twelveyearolds in a tent scared about robots Itrsquos been two days since Irsquove seen the film and I still donrsquot know what the characters of Morgan Freeman Paul Bettany and Cillian Murphy are Theyrsquore all doctors in one scene scientists in another suddenly FBI personnel and also SWAT team members I also donrsquot get the point of the terrorists crusading against science and Kate Mara pulls off a string of unintentionally funny scenes as the leader of the cultFor a scifi action film there is literally no action in the movie And if Irsquom supposed to take Transcendence as a drama there is only tons of cringeinducing melodrama in it The film is also extremely annoying because it presents science as something against the natural order of things This is not how you do scifi in 2014 Science is fun cool and amazing You canrsquot preach about the illeffects of science without debating it with some semblance of intellect This is a shocking disappointment especially for Nolan fans with Interstellar around the corner Letrsquos hope this was just an anomaly