Item: Transcendence
Rating: 4
Author: Arline Ramirez

Movie Review: Transcendence

Transcendence has interesting questions: what if someone finally bridged the gap between humanity and technology? if artificial man-made intelligence can be self-aware and capable of human emotion, what does that say about us? Do we really have a soul? what if someone transcends his human limits to play God and change with nature?

Unfortunately, the film spends more time on cinematic shots rather than fleshing its ideas. The nonsensical script is filled with plot holes and betrays its own logic.

The characters are merely puppets that suddenly flip motivations and change alliances. Johnny Depp phoned it in. Paul Bethany and Rebecca Hall tried but the movie is dull. Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy spend most of their time standing around. Kate Mara is underused as the anti-tech terrorist leader.

The action here is equally bad, with bad CGI that looked like it was ripped from a B-movie.

Towards the end, the movie goes further down the rabbit hole and finishes with a cheesy moment that doesn’t make any sense.

Transcendence dares to make an intelligent blockbuster movie but barely reaches its aspirations because of a poorly written script.

Transcendence

Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed—to be a participant in his own transcendence.

Transcendence has big ideas torpedoed by a poorly written script, bland direction, and misused characters.