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MOVIES: Transcendence – The longest, stupidest two hours of your life – Review

18 Apr 2014

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Few movies in recent memory have tortured their audiences with as much flawed logic and faux intelligence as Transcendence. Despite its grand premise – a human uploading his being or soul into a computer – Transcendence is the cinematic equivalent of discussing current events with someone who has only read the headlines of news stories but has never clicked through to read the full article.

The biggest problem is not just that the movie is stupid (it is, but more on that later), it’s that the script proposes situations which bastardize the basic premises on which the film is built. The movie attempts to be an allegory for a number of ideological conflicts (creationists vs. evolutionists; technophiles vs. technophobes; fascism vs. socialism) all at once while never convincingly making a single argument for or against any of the myriad philosophies it irresponsibly employs. Like a college freshmen eager to impress his friends, Transcendence references an array of disparate ideas while having very little understanding of any of them.

Let’s start with the film’s central concept: the idea that one day, through exponential advances in technology, the intelligence of a computer will surpass the intelligence of humans. The brilliant Ray Kurzweil has talked for years about this inevitability which he calls “the Singularity.” In the movie, Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) refers to this event as “transcendence” (hence the title of the movie) while inexplicably casting aside the accepted term Singularity. But, what happens in the course of the movie is not the Singularity (or transcendence)! After being attacked by an anti-technology group known as RIFT, Will and his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), find a way to upload his consciousness – that which makes him human – into a super powerful computer which allows him to bypass death. So, the title of the movie is meaningless since it refers to an event that never actually happens in the movie.

Ostensibly, the villains of the film are the members of RIFT, their goal being…well, it’s not quite clear. They hate Will Caster and other researchers working in the field of artificial intelligence, but it is never explained where they draw the line on good vs. bad technology. This militant band (which looks like it is comprised of extras from Portlandia) opposes technology, but they have more sophisticated computer networks and instruments at their disposal than the FBI. Early in the movie, Will is challenged by a RIFT member during a lecture, accusing him of attempting to create a god (not Will’s intention, by the way). So, are they only trying to prevent technological advances that “play god”? What about advances in medicine that save lives? Is that off limits? Obviously not as late in the movie RIFT uses modern medicine (i.e. technology) to try to prevent a man from dying.

Transcendence is the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, who has previously been a director of photography and who has made every one of Christopher Nolan’s films since Insomnia the beautiful works that they are. Pfister is wonderfully talented as a cinematographer, but his first attempt as a director proves he did not learn as much from Nolan as he should have. Transcendence is a mess from the very beginning, its pace stalling between nearly every development in the plot. The movie moves into the action so quickly that we know next to nothing about the characters or their relationships. For example, Evelyn does everything she can to keep Will “alive,” including crossing some very clear ethical boundaries. Why? We are made to assume she loves him because they are married, but we never see more than a very cold professor/TA relationship between them prior to Will being shot. Similarly, our entry point into RIFT, Bree (Kate Mara), is a complete mystery. We know nothing about her: Why does she fear/hate technology? Can she be trusted? Does she understand the technology she is trying to destroy? Transcendence doesn’t have characters; it has movie tropes which are used only to serve the story.

Written by Jack Paglen, Transcendence somehow landed on the 2012 Black List (the annual list of the best unproduced screenplays) which begs the question: How much was stripped away from the original script to make it more palatable for mass audiences? It’s hard to imagine that a script filled with this many asinine lines of dialogue and partially thought out plot points would be considered the best of anything.

Aside from Rebecca Hall, who gives a very good performance with a great deal of depth, the talented cast is completely wasted. Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy play characters that add nothing to the story. Mara’s perpetual frown becomes monotonous and annoying. Paul Bettany, who plays a close friend of Will and Evelyn, seems to think he is in a production of Hamlet and not in a barrel of drivel which makes Michael Bay seem insightful. Unsurprisingly, Depp is asleep through most of the film, uttering his dialogue in monotone through a clenched jaw, most likely a result of the self-loathing he feels from having signed on in the first place.

Transcendence is bad and unrepentant in its badness. Do not see this movie and please prevent anyone you love, care about or even begrudgingly tolerate from seeing it. Ever.

Grade: F

16 comments:

  1. Glad I skipped seeing this one. Didn't have a good feeling about it.

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  2. I was really excited for this one, but all the reviews coming out these days (Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes) say the same thing: this movie is quite bad. Anyway I'll have a look.

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  3. If the reviewer thinks Rebecca Hall, the lead actress, gives a "very good" performance, the F rating seems way overboard.

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  4. This is funny now

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/wally-pfister-the-avengers-dark-knight-rises_n_1973113.html

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  5. I always go see the movie for myself. I don't bother paying attention to critics because usually it's not as bad as they say and I'm pretty good at picking out movies I'll at least not mind wasting time on.

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  6. I wasted three long, stupid minutes of my life watching the trailer for Transcendence in a theater.

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  7. I saw this with Matt, and man, it was terrible. It was a bit too smart for idiots but too dumb for smart people. It had very few, if any, redeeming qualities.

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  8. This is getting some serious bad reviews...thinking twice now...

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  9. I don't care about logic in movies where I don't expect there to be logic, so I actually didn't care about all ^that^. Just saw the movie and took it as what it was and moved on. I will give it a 6.7

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  10. Looking forward to the DVD release and hoping it has tons of deleted scenes! I know there's way more to this movie and hopefully some edited scenes will better explain the plot.

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  11. you just dont get it ?! everythink it seem si-fi in that movie is "on the table " today in laboratories...or maybe you are the smart one and ray kurtzweil is the stupid.....hmm i realy dont think so...

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  12. is one of the best movie i ever seen...

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  13. did anyone have any ideea about what tehnology will bee in next 20 to 30 year ? from what i see on this page i realy dont think so...try too imform your self a litle bit about it...do yo now who is the best when it comes to predict the future tehnologies?? Ray Kurtzweil and its not me saing that ,it was Bill Gates...every think in this movie is ok for people who now somethink about the tehnology we have today in the labs...

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  14. http://guardianlv.com/2014/07/how-close-are-humans-to-immortality/

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  15. ya,it is ok for me that stupid people remain stupid...

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  16. As flawed and chaotic as it is this film is well worth the 2 hours - (or now the 6 I've spent going over it a third time) The Spoiler reviewer harshly dismissed the film for failure to delve deeply enough into the significant themes. Well it would take well over 2 hours to delve deeply into any one of the issues raised by the plot.
    There is something quite interesting about the approach I think. Most film makers have a set point of view and tend to sell that viewpoint by making it easy to side with the POV the director embraces, but TRANSCENDENCE leaves us wondering which side the director is on. - Does he favor Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman, and Cillian Murphy - those paranoid about the power of Dr Caster's mind online? Or is he presenting a case for the Depp/Rebecca Hall team and their version of a changed world?


    We are told by the trailers that the world in in great peril from a very powerful intelligence that "cannot be stopped". So we are supposed to fear this powerful unknown intelligence enough to embrace murderers - terrorists - and a a crew that destroys the Internet and creates all of the chaos that involves. It seems that once again all we have to fear is fear itself. The military and the FBI are out to protect us from a sensitive intelligent couple who spend their time giving sight to the blind, healing the sick and returning the planet to it's pristine pollution free virgin condition. Even the Rebecca Hall character ends up having second thoughts about the situation she is responsible for creating. This is an interesting story with many flaws - but it is far from any waste of time if you're willing to have the debate with yourself in Rebecca Hall's Evelyn Caster shoes. In then end I hope that Dr Caster and his wife are only dormant in the sunflowers waiting for the opportunity to return to action.

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