Film Carew: Transcendence

So, after an Evil Cake is used to kill a bunch of eggheads in labcoats, scientists-as-lovers Rebecca Hall and the ghost of Johnny Depp —living on as a work of sentient AI technology— are on the run, fleeing from a “radical neo-luddite group”, fellow scientists appalled by their immoral actions, and an FBI team. Having escaped by the skin of their teeth, they head out to the desert, and there undertake a THREE-YEAR CONSTRUCTION PROJECT building a giant, underground, solar-powered research-facility which Depp can use to... take over the world!

It's one of innumerable moments in Transcendence in which logic goes to die; a fundamental problem given that it's supposed to be, y'know, smart and stuff. It's a piece of silly sci-fi paranoia that is to nanotechnology as The Lawnmower Man was to virtual reality. It'll be just as hilarious to watch back in 20 years, too, although it's also plenty funny now.

Uh oh... the only way off The Dark Knight Rises set is via the Transcendence soundstage

Much has been made of Christopher Nolan's long-time cinematographer, Wally Pfister, finally being in charge of his own film, but aside from a few 2nd-unit-esque shots in ultra-shallow-focus, Transcendence displays little directorial élan. Pfister points his camera at a host of celebrity actors, and most of them barely respond. Depp radiates cheque-cashing tedium; Cillian Murphy gives even less of a shit; and Kate Mara, as peroxided terrorist, is so dead-eyed she almost seems like a piece of AI herself, the thespian craft lost in the uncanny valley of her performance.

"Ah nope... no... we have nothing to do with this film... just lookin' is all."

If the acting is awful —and, no ifs, it is— then the dialogue sure ain't better. “The brain can't be reduced to electrical impulses!” says Paul Bettany's science-guy naysayer; not too many electrical impulses having been spent writing lines like that. Jack Paglan's screenplay was once on the insider Black List —a ranking of the best unproduced scripts kicking around Hollywood— but one wonders just how long it's been kicking around. Instead of peering into our dystopian future, it already feels dated.

When Hall and Bettany first attempt to upload Depp's “consciousness” into digital sentience, they solve a glitch by turning the computer off and on. When he's initially struggling to communicate with them —via a green flashing cursor on a black screen!— Hall says they need to “defrag the hard-drive”. After that, Johnny comes to life, and soon we're all living in his Electric Dreams; his vast desert facility also a luxurious seduction-pad in which he can keep Hall under constant surveillance.

"I'll do anything you ask, just don't make me watch this back."

When Hall gets to bristle in a borderline-abusive relationship, the film is momentarily interesting; when Morgan Freeman comes to visit the compound and parallels are made to the press arriving at Jonestown (“we're not hiding anything,” Hall smiles), there's flickers of life; and, perhaps in some distant draft of the script, the who's-really-the-villain alternating between Depp and the anti-technology-terrorists felt like more than just accidental tonal inconsistency.

But, for the most part, Paglan's writing is awful. “Where are you going?” Hall asks her virtual beau, when first they flee; “everywhere!” he eerily intones, to the audible groans of the audience, the internet allowing Depp —already so arrogant that he keeps copies of Wired with himself on the front-cover just lying around the house— omniscient powers.

Transcendence predicts the future - that there's a bomb on the way

The Playing God motif is forever sledgehammer subtle: Depp basically pronounces he's going to do it holding the stage at an early fundraiser, and, sure enough, by the third act he's making the lame walk and the blind see. If cinematic villains have taught us anything, it's that neither man nor machine should ever Play God, and, thus, his hubris must be punished. Transcendence's two-pronged plan to bring him down? One: cannons. Two: love!