"Transcendence" Review

Transcendence

3 out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13

Moderate amount of violence
Moderate violent or bloody images
Mild amount of language
One scene of sexuality between a married couple,
but nothing is shown, and they just kiss







"Transcendence" is a mix of "Her" and "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" sprinkled with some "1984," but not nearly as well thought-out.

Johnny Depp plays Will Caster, a brilliant scientist who has been experimenting with artificial intelligence. He has an idea he calls "transcendence," in which a mind is uploaded into a very powerful computer.

There are some people who think this is a very bad idea. They are part of a radical group who think technology has been going too far and making people impersonal. The group kills a several people involved in the project, and one of the members shoots Caster.

Caster does not die right then, but the bullet was laced with some kind of poison that kills him slowly. Before dying, his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), and the couple's friend, Max Waters (Paul Bettany), upload his brain into a computer so he is still there after he is gone.

The exact procedure of doing this is not very clear, which is part of the problem with this movie. The dialogue is good, the concept is interesting, but the actual showing how everything works is not very well executed. Those who made this film did not seem to understand how this would work.

It seems that the characters do not completely understand how it works either because they debate throughout the film whether the artificial intelligence really is Will Caster or if it is just a simulation of him. The only clear thing is the computer itself is an artificial intelligence that is bent on changing the world.

That is where the conflict comes in. The computer becomes so powerful that a lot of people are scared, and it seems the radical anti-technology group was right about a lot of things. The plot ends up focusing on how some characters work to stop it.

I was pretty entertained throughout the film, but my mind was not blown like it was with "Her," a film with a similar concept, but executed a lot better. What that film did right was describe the characters so thoroughly that they seem real. Even the computer's artificial intelligence in that film seems like a genuine person.

In this film, there is not a lot of set up for the characters themselves. Their personalities are not very distinct from one another. Will Caster is just a very brilliant man who wants to learn. When his mind is uploaded into the computer, he seems kind of robotic. There is not much to Evelyn either. She is also a scientist who is smart and who marvels at the fact that her dead husband is in the computer. There is not much else to describe either of them.

Their relationship is also not very well developed. We know that Evelyn loves Will, but the depth of their relationship is not described very well. There is very little emotional investment from the audience's part when she is trying to save her husband.

When he becomes the computer, there is a space of two years that the film skips. At first Evelyn is completely happy he is there, and then after that time period, she seems scared of him. This would have been so much more impactful had it shown what happens during that span. How is their relationship? What do they talk about? The description is not there, and this causes the film to go from a potentially awesome movie to a mediocre sci-fi.

A reason for this lack of character development probably has to do with the filmmakers wanting to throw some twists at the audience. However, had it just stuck to showing us how everything worked, the film would have been so much better.

Despite its flaws, "Transcendence" is actually thought provoking in some ways, and it is entertaining to watch. If you can handle mediocre story structure, I would recommend this film, but it is not something you need to rush out to see.