A box office and critical bomb, “Transcendence” is one of those movies that at least doesn’t suffer from a lack of trying.
This big, ambitious sci-fi thriller starring Johnny Depp posits a world in which artificial intelligence is threatening to take over, with promises of infinite knowledge and immortality -- as long as humans are willing to give up control and subvert their free will.
Depp plays Will Caster, a brilliant scientist who wants to build a sentient computer. He is forced to make himself the subject of his experiment when he is fatally wounded by anti-technology terrorists. With the help of his wife (Rebecca Hall) and reluctant best friend (Paul Bettany), he uploads his consciousness into a super computer.
The recomposed Will spreads across the Internet like a virus, and quickly makes breakthrough discoveries in medicine, energy and nanotechnology. He oversees the construction of a utopia-like town in the desert, and begins conscripting an army of henchmen controlled by his technology.
There are a lot of huge, thoughtful ideas in this movie. The screenplay by Jack Paglan had languished on the Black List of promising but unproduced scripts for years. But first-time director Wally Pfister, a cinematographer by trade, is clearly out of his depth, lacking the storytelling chops to translate such a complex narrative with overarching themes.
In the end, “Transcendence” is a slave to its science fiction tropes, rather than rising above them and giving us something new.
Video extras are OK, though you’ll have to spring for the more expensive Blu-ray combo pack to get most of them. The DVD version contains only two featurettes, “What Is Transcendence?” and “Wally Pfister: A Singular Vision.”
On the Blu-ray you’ll get four more making-of featurettes, and theatrical trailers.
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