Photo Credit: Maddie Norwood[/caption]Transcendence, the new Wally Pfister sci-fi film starring Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall that opened on April 18, is a decent movie that will keep viewers’ attention. Watched on its own, it is an exciting, thought-provoking thriller. However, if watched after Her, a recent movie that addresses the same issues as Transcendence in a much more interesting way, it will seem boring and mediocre.
Depp, as in most of his movies, is brilliant as the scientist Will Caster. He starts out as an intelligent, antisocial man who’s reluctant to present to the scientific community about his recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. He runs a science lab and, along with his wife Evelyn (Hall), has built an AI named PINN, which stands for a physically independent neural network. This AI, which is so big that it takes up a large room, can identify people the first time it meets them based on pictures it finds of them online. When Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman), a scientist who works for the government, asks PINN if it is self-aware, it asks him to prove that he is. One flaw of the movie is that PINN’s possibilities are never explored. Why is something that can recognize someone’s face groundbreaking? Supposedly it’s because PINN is sentient, but this is never adequately proven.
An anti-technology terrorist group, Revolutionary Independence From Technology (R.I.F.T.), opposes AIs, and attacks science labs around the country to halt progress in AI development. Caster is shot, but is in good health after a brief hospital stay. Caster’s lab is the only major one left intact, so the government asks to look at and use his research. This plan is shelved, however, when he collapses in his home, and doctors discover the bullet he was shot with was laced with poison. Evelyn and one of Caster’s friends, Max Waters (Paul Bettany), decide to use experimental technology to upload Caster’s mind into PINN. The idea is successful, although it doesn’t go exactly as planned.
The movie has another flaw in its logic. Along with the lack of detail about PINN, members of R.I.F.T. are seen using iPad-like devices to combat Caster. Should the group that’s against technology be seen using technology? Probably not. Other logical flaws make much of the movie unbelievable.
The other major problem is that nothing about the movie is original. Smart, humanlike AIs? They are in any number of sci-fi films. For example, there’s Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A collective mind that uses mechanical tendrils to assimilate new members? That’s the Borg from Star Trek. A romance plot between an AI and human? The aforementioned Her does it better. Transcendence takes great elements from numerous movies and combines them in stale, overused ways to create a movie that isn’t anything special.
Some aspects of the movie are amazing. The cinematography, for instance, is brilliant. From shots of nanobots rising from the earth to rain falling, the whole movie is beautiful. However, good scenery isn’t enough to save Transcendence from mediocrity. I expected better, but the highest rating I can give it is 7.5 stars out of 10.
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