REVIEW: Transcendence

2/10 - I wrote this rating line before I even saw the film.

This film is evidence that Johnny Depp only stars in incredibly bad movies. Exponentially bad. On this rate he'll star in the next Transformers.

There's some irony in that, too. It's genuinely difficult to relate to Depp's character. Depp himself is so frequently real-life cartoon characters that it's difficult to see him as anything else.

After about 20 minutes of Transcendence I've realized that I don't care about Johnny Depp or his wife. They're boring and incredibly uninteresting. I have no idea what the stakes were supposed to be but they're not compelling. By 40 minutes in I decided Tron with it's hockey helmet costumes was more realistic.

I can't quite decide where the failure was, but there is a total collapse in communicating the narrative of the film. Within the first few minutes a terrorist attack happens in our heroes laboratory! This brilliant scientist is dying! There's a last minute effort to scan his brain, but will it work?! All these are exciting monumental events that should make for a great film. Instead it comes across as blase. The most exciting events were shot in the most mundane, boring way possible.

Perhaps it's the heavy handed cerebral concepts that cause Transcendence to backfire. Even if you buy into the premises, it's somehow too premise heavy. The audience gets hit over the head with warnings of the dangers of advancing technology. Even it's own internal logic is a stretch. Characters and consequences falls by the wayside to the need to illustrate minor details. There's nothing that engages the audience whatsoever.

For example, there's a scene where FBI agent Morgan Freeman approaches Evelyn who was just ripped away from her home. He says "I know you're angry, Evelyn." She replies with a rational conversation. She doesn't act angry or say anything an angry person would say. I'm not entirely sure either one of those characters had any attributes of being human. I can't name a single character trait of any character in the film. They just do things.

Transcendence is a thought experiment of impulses without ever telling a story worth telling. Neither the characters nor the concept are ever explained clearly. Instead of eliciting questions about the ethics of technology and it's role in manipulating humanity, I'm questioning how this film fell flat on it's face. It's an emotionless movie that mistakes a challenging concept with challenging the audience.


IMDb - Transcendence (6.4)
Wikipedia - Transcendence
Rotten Tomatoes - Transcendence (19%)
Amazon - Transcendence