How long has it been since you last looked at your smart-phone? since you last used a tablet? or typed something into a computer? Modern-day life is ruled by technology (hell, if you’re reading this you’re online right now), and the latest Johnny Depp movie Transcendence show us just how dangerous our obsession with technology can be.
Starring as genius scientist Will Caster, Depp (The Lone Ranger) headlines Transcendence as a man who’s growing increasingly close to producing a truly self-aware Artificial-Intelligence, but quickly has his life cut short by a group of radical terrorists (known as RIFT); who were scared that playing God with A-I could end up hurting humanity as a whole; leading Will’s wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall, Iron Man 3) to continue his work, and find a way to upload her husband’s consciousness into a computer.
Transcendence then continues to play out over its two-hour runtime with a rather uneasy feeling that it’s not really Will in the computer, but something darker and more sinister (a question that hangs over the entire film, and continues to build to a rather flat resolution; as does much of the movie), and as Evelyn uploads Will’s consciousness to the internet (giving him huge access to practically everything he could want), and hides out in the desert, RIFT begin to close in, others notice what’s going on, and even Evelyn begins to question what she’s done.
It’s a brilliant idea, and not hard to see why the script (written by an unknown Jack Paglen) once ended up on Hollywood’s Black List (a list of the best, as yet unproduced, scripts floating around the city of dreams), but unfortunately the execution ends up being rather lacklustre; it’s not bad by any means, but it’s difficult to describe just how influential a threat an enormously powerful A-I could become, and as such Transcendence feels like it’s constantly building to a payoff that simply never arrives; there’s no action to speak of, no malice, and as we’re also led to care for Will and his computer-alter-ego throughout the movie, it doesn’t even feel like there’s really a “bad-guy” in the film. So Will’s existence, or RIFT’s termination of it, doesn’t even really matter.
It’s not a problem with casting, because Johnny Depp’s perfectly acceptable as the brilliant scientist (though a lot more toned down than his Jack Sparrow days), Rebecca Hall delivers a completely believable and sympathetic performance as the wife who wants her husband back no matter the cost, and with supporting stars that include the likes of Morgan Freeman (Now You See Me), Cillian Murphy (The Dark Knight Rises), Kate Mara (Deadfall), Clifton Collins Jr. (Pacific Rim), and Paul Bettany (the Priest star who’s always a strong actor, but would’ve actually done a better job in Depp’s role, and likely only missed out on headlining due to his work as the A-I Jarvis in the Iron Man movies), there’s no-one here that lets the side down.
Direction is also suitably strong, as while Transcendence may be his directorial debut, director Wally Pfister has worked as director of photography on big budget movies such as The Dark Knight Rises, and The Prestige, and does a grand job of showcasing his talents for framing a shot here (even if one or two shots do appear unnecessarily showy), and even manages to create a rather well paced film (sure it may be such a gradual crescendo that the payoff is near non-existent, but the two-hour runtime does in fact fly-by), and so the only problem with Transcendence can be the story itself; it’s just too vast to squeeze into a two-hour film and, honestly, it’s just not exciting enough.
It may have landed on the Black List, it may have an exceptional cast (the wordless cameo from Xander Berkley proving to be a personal casting highlight), and even manage to maintain a solid pace, thanks to perfectly apt direction, but Transcendence is proof that a brilliant idea (even one as thought-provoking as Transcendence should be) doesn’t always translate into a good film.
It’s not bad by any means, it’s just rather un-exciting, utterly flat throughout, and actually has the feel of something which would work better as a cheap mini-series on the SyFy Channel. The idea behind Transcendence is fantastic, the only problem is we’ve already seen countless films riff on the idea that our obsession with technology and A-I could become our downfall, and plenty which have done it better; and because of that you’re probably better off watching WarGames, The Terminator, The Matrix, or 2001: A Space Odyssey to name but a few.
Matt Wheeldon – @TheMattWheeldon.
Transcendence was viewed in The Regent Cinema, Newtown.
