“Can you prove you’re self aware?”

Transcendence proves that Wally Pfister is great at what he does, unfortunately, – Wally Pfister does not direct movies. The film is beautiful, from the first frame to the last. I can’t imagine that cinematographer Jess Hall (The Spectacular Now) had much to do standing next to Pfister– it must have been akin to taking painting lessons from Michelangelo. You see, Transcendence is the directorial debut for Pfister who has made a name for himself as Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer. He is responsible for the amazing look that films like The Dark Knight and Inception have. And at first, Transcendence even looks and feels like a Nolan film – Alas, it turns out to just be a soulless robotic version of one.

This screenplay is a mess. So much so that I’m surprised Pfister, Nolan, and his producing/life partner Emma Thomas, didn’t at least attempt to remedy its many issues. The film starts great; Johnny Depp plays the renowned A.I. scientist Will Caster, who is the target of an anti-tech terrorist group’s plot. They shoot him, resulting in him having a very finite amount of time left alive. Depp’s brain is uploaded by his wife, Evelyn, and best doctor buddy Max. Max chickens out after robo-Depp comes back to life and Evelyn has to flee the terrorist group after hooking him up to the internet. After this point nothing that happens really has any life to it. It just feels like a bland and bloated version of a William Gibson novel.

At times during the films third act, as it was crumbling to pieces before my eyes, I started thinking how this movie wants to be too many things. I credit it for not pandering to the dummies too much. The lingo used in this film is not just random science words thrown in to make the audience feel like they are watching a tech movie– all of the tech talk really means something most of the time. Because of this though, the film asks that you take it seriously, and then it does a lot of things that don’t follow the serious rules it has established. The movie did not have to be a tentpole summer blockbuster, it should have been tightened and smaller. It really feels at times like a superhero movie without the superhero, and instead of cutting to scenes of Batman doing things to counteract the evil Depp 9000, instead we just cut to Kate Mara putting up posters and looking through her Powerbook.

The characters outside of Will, Evelyn, and Max really have no life to them at all. Whereas Nolan can imbue a supporting character with instant gravitas, Pfister must have skipped that lesson. Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy just stand around like dolts most of the time. Murphy plays an FBI agent who hangs out with Professor Freeman instead of, you know, calling in more FBI agents to help out.

I’d also be kind of annoyed with this movie if I were a woman. There are two female characters in the movie, one is Mara, who plays the head of the anti-tech group R.I.F.T. She is not at all a likable character, usually just trying to kill people for most of the film. And then we have Evelyn, our very own biblical Eve 2.0 – who is responsible for plucking the forbidden fruit from the tree of technology by giving Johnny 5 everything he needs to become an evil super computer. She has to shoulder the blame for everything bad that happens in this movie, all while standing around looking dumbfounded. I mean really, she has a Ph.D. in science and can’t see what everyone else around her can see. I guess she was blinded by love, or blinded by all the nice things her new robot husband gives her – because women be shoppin’.

However, Rebecca Hall does an amazing job with what she is given. She is hands down the best performance in this film. Her emotions are the only believable ones on the screen– except for when D.E.P.P. Vista says “I’ll never let you go.” Sweet Titanic line read!

I guess there is a twist at the end, but by that point I really felt nothing other than “why is this 2 hours long?” The film establishes Will Caster as a greatest thinkable being and then limits his power for no reason to create an empty conundrum, resulting only in frustration.

Pfister has crafted a great looking film. I’m actually excited to see him make more movies, because we need more directors for these giant tentpole films other than Michael Bay. Maybe there is a learning curve to this thing, and it would have been better to not debut with a $100 million dollar film.

All we get here is a sleek but ultimately empty portrayal of the singularity. I really would have loved for this movie to have surprised me, and I would love to be able to recommend it to you– however – I’m afraid I can’t do that.

5/10

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