Movie Review: "Transcendence"

Transcendence (2014)

PG-13

2.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Wally Pfister
Writer                                   Jack Paglen
Cinematography                Jess Hall
Music                                    Mychael Danna

Johnny Depp                      Will Caster
Rebecca Hall                       Evelyn Caster
Paul Bettany                       Max Waters
Cillian Murphy                   Agent Buchanan
Kate Mara                           Bree
Morgan Freeman             Joseph Tagger

 

Science Fiction can be such a wonderful canvas on which to paint visual forms of ideas that conventional drama can touch only lightly, or maybe not at all. Consider what “Under the Skin" worked so successfully to demonstrate: that our modern definition of human is truly skin deep; or consider what the failed 2014 version of Robocop tried to illustrate: a person’s basic humanity can triumph over evil and soulless technology; and now consider the almost equally failed “Transcendence”: when does helping someone (no matter your intentions) cross the line between helping and enslaving. “Transcendence” tries to cover other territory, too: the border between human and machine, or the border between Man and God. These are lofty questions and topics, and when done right, can be entertaining and thought provoking, but when done poorly, the viewer’s reaction might range from dismay to something far less than transcendence.

“Transcendence” is a story that is rooted in the concept of Artificial Intelligence and how that AI will interact with mankind. The film begins with an introduction to an AI researcher played by Johnny Depp, Will Caster and his equally brilliant wife, Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall). Will is assaulted by a team of neo-Luddites (the movie’s term, though for Luddites they seem awfully comfortable with technology). As his condition worsens, his wife Evelyn decides to make a copy of Will’s mind and transfer it into a computer. She enlists the help of Will’s co-worker Max Waters (Paul Bettany). As leader of the neo-Luddites, Bree (Kate Mara) strives to prevent Evelyn from allowing virtual Will to reach the internet; but to no avail. Once there, virtual Will begins to amass power and abilities that ultimately alienates all of his former colleagues, even Evelyn. There is (small surprise) a concluding battle between Will and a remarkably small sample of the US Army, Bree and Will’s college crowd. The final scenes show a somewhat remorseful Max musing over whether or not Will has found a way to overcome his adversities and unite in some manner with Evelyn.

The problems with this movie are symptomatic of bad science fiction films: over-reach in terms of the protagonist’s abilities and ironically, a ridiculous always present Achilles Heel (think the nonsense of the vent on the Death Star that Luke uses to destroy it). Virtual Will is confronted with multiple examples of people indirectly verbally classing him with God; mostly in the context of his virtual existence, but indirectly foreshadowing his God-like abilities to come. And his abilities do come: he masters the Stock Market in minutes, he invents nano-robots that can repair and improve Humans in months, he defies gravity, and yet, and yet – darn those pesky viruses. He can wreak havoc with logic and science but just like those omnipotent aliens in “Independence Day”, and unlike the Aliens, he knows the attack is coming and the nature of the attack, and yet he too is powerless to defend against the virus.

Bad science, bad logic, and a pointless focus on a modern equivalent of the villagers in “Frankenstein” storming Victor’s castle is the approach taken by first-time Director, Wally Pfister. Was it because it was Cinematographer Pfister’s first time out as a Director that led to such a flaccid story? With the truly brilliant writer/director Christopher Nolan acting in the role of executive Producer on the team, one really has to wonder, did no one see the weak and uninspired film that came out of this effort. Imagine a story that took the movie’s opening premise of downloading a mind, and perhaps even include the second premise of how that mind might expand when allowed to function at internet speeds and in connection with internet-sized mountains of data. Could there not have been a Stanley Kubrick visionary view of this concept similar to “2001”? Is there no other storyline but the one used by Mary Shelly over a century ago in the original Frankenstein?

Arthur C Clarke wrote in the mid-twentieth century about how any science sufficiently advanced would appear indistinguishable from magic; or to paraphrase him, from God. Clarke explored this idea in the book form of "2001", and Kubrick led the viewer right up to that point where a God-like Dave floated, poised above the Earth, pondering. Would Clarke or Kubrick have turned the next scene into a raging battle with tanks and jets, and I’m sure, a car chase or two (yes, I know a fleet of rockets were sent skyward, but what then happened, any explosions?). Or is there some more subtle next step that might have occurred; something that might demonstrate or at least define what being Human and what being God-like might be? Is there a better way to explore the subjects noted above in the first paragraph that doesn’t involve explosions? The answer is yes; go back and watch “Under the Skin” a second time, and you will see some hope for intelligent and nuanced explorations of these subjects.