Movie Review: Transcendence

The movie stars Johnny Depp as Dr. Will Caster, a genius celebrity computer programmer—he gives something like a TED talk and is greeted like an eccentric god, not all that differently than how Depp is treated in the real world—who believes he has figured out a way to upload human consciousness into the cloud. (He does this to Make The World a Better Place, rather than eventually enslave humanity.) Handily, mere minutes after his TED talk, he is shot with a polonium-laced bullet, and before he dies, his partner and wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), to keep him "alive," uploads his brain. Suddenly, he's self-aware, and once he connects to the Internet, he decides that humanity must be destroyed.

Transcendence looks fantastic—it's directed by brilliant cinematographer Wally Pfister—and there are moments where you can see what could have been, particularly when it slows down for a moment to just take everything in. (The movie is mostly in a constant, careening sprint.) But its obligation to be a Big Studio Event sneaks out in every scene, and the characters are slaves to a lumbering plot that ultimately ceases to make sense. (Paul Bettany's supporting character, in particular, has no logic at all.) It ends up selling out its own premise anyway, cleaning up any negative thoughts you'd have about Caster because, hey, it was all about loveafter all.


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