Transcendence: Johnny Depp causes the Singularity in dreadful movie shock
This was one of those movies that in retrospect never seemed like a good idea, although at one point it was one of the hottest scripts in Hollywood - if only someone had sat the screenwriter down to watch Lawnmower Man first in hope that he decided against it.
Transcendence has some interesting ideas, not least in how the Singularity, the moment Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes sentient and progresses beyond mankind, will take place. Although the movie decides to refer to this moment as 'transcendence' in an effort to better convey it’s plot through the title - which probably could have been written by an old Atari ST in fact.
Johnny Depp, who despite all the critical acclaim he receives really does choose some dreadful movies to appear in, plays the lifeless Dr Will Caster with an oddly deteriorating English accent as the film progresses. Caster is one of the world’s leading AI researchers. He is shot by a terrorist organisation out to prevent technology overtaking mankind, but survives the attack (it's a flesh wound), only to discover that the bullet was laced with a radioactive substance (eh?), meaning that he only has weeks to live.This handily means that his wife and best friend can upload him into the super computer that he has built - PINN.
The upload works, and he is placed online just in time to avoid the terrorists shutting him down. The plot sees the digitalised Caster and his wife then take over a small town in order to continue his work, which includes being able to instantly heal human bodies and take them over at the same time, connecting them with his own intelligence, as he builds a super army.
Meanwhile his best friend and former colleagues join forces with the terrorists, who also join forces with the FBI (by this point the viewer will be willing for it all to end and will have given up any search for logic) in order to take down the computer version of Caster.
Transcendence has possibilities but it never figures out how to balance its good ideas with action and pace in order to entertain. It's ranges between pompous, dull and silly as a result. The Terminator remains the best movie to explore the concept of Singularity, a subject so ripe with possibility that it’s a shame this is what it spawned.
The script has each character spout exposition throughout, while throwing in some words the writer clearly took out of an issue of Wired he once bought. The terrorists (apparently the bad guys, although the viewer clearly is expected to understand their motivations too) worked with Caster in the past but turned against him when he attempted to upload the brain of a monkey in a computer (some comedy lines ensue as a result of that revelation.)
Christopher Nolan, the man behind the recent Batman trilogy, is credited as an executive producer on this nonsense, but that’s probably down to him passing the email addresses of its director (his cinematographer) and those of Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy (both hugely wasted here) to the producers.
It’s hard to find much to be positive about Transcendence; Depp performs as though he is being controlled by a computer, while the rest of the cast look a little like they don’t really understand what is going on.
Maybe this is a topic best left in the hands of James Cameron, who clearly did understand the ramifications of AI profession thirty years ago.
As a result, I can't even recommend wasting memory space on downloading this film one day. Maybe my laptop will extract revenge on me for saying that - but I'll take that chance.