After months of hype, Wally Pfister’s directorial debut, Transcendence, was by its 19% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I remember looking forward to this movie when I first heard about it. However, my hopes quickly extinguished when I saw how poorly the critics received it and how poorly it did at the box office. It grossed only $23 million domestically (although it did end up grossing $103 million worldwide, surpassing its $100 million budget barely and making it a slightly profitable movie). I thought that movie was not disappointing at all, but maybe misunderstood. It was slow (one of its significant gripes), but honestly, not any slower than Interstellar (which critics loved, made a ton of movies in the United States, and was released just a few short months earlier). I know I am in the minority when I say that, despite its limitations and shortcomings, which I will discuss, you should give the movie a chance.

Transcendence is not the most straightforward movie to follow. And while that will be frustrating for some (including me) at times, I think that, in the end, it leaves you satisfied. It was maddening at times trying to figure out what was going on, which characters were good, which were bad, etc. But that was part of the story. In this sense, it was similar to Interstellar too. And a final comparison to Interstellar would be the essence of the story (or more the reasons that the characters did what they did) was based around essential family relationships. The two movies were very similar, and while I liked Interstellar more, I didn’t see such a huge drop-off (outside of all of the cool visuals and sounds, maybe). But the acting and directing were superb, while the story was more than serviceable.

In this movie, Will (Johnny Depp – Finding Neverland, Chocolat) and Evelyn (Rebecca Hall – The Town, Everything Must Go) are artificial intelligence researchers who are also husband and wife and very much in love. For me, the heart of the story was the relationship between Will and Evelyn. When a director can successfully make a relationship story the foundation of a science-fiction/fantasy movie and still have it believable, they have done a great job. Christoper Nolan was able to do this with Interstellar. Of course, there have been others, but Interstellar is my comparison movie in this review. They have been working on a project for years, one on its path to completion, that will essentially allow artificially intelligent machines to do practically anything. Will and Evelyn are focusing on the ability to treat diseases or fix any problem on the planet. Some support this (most notably, probably those who do suffer from an illness), but some vocal opponents think that this will allow a machine to “play God.”

When the plan derails due to an untimely sickness that Will incurs and the simultaneous explosion at his and Evelyn’s research facility (not too much of a spoiler since these events happen in the first 20 minutes), they abort the plan. Or is it? Early in the testing phase of PINN (Physically Independent Neural Network), the consciousness of a test monkey was uploaded to the supercomputer, and Evelyn suggests that they try to do the same with Will. Understandingly desperate, Evelyn will do whatever she can to keep her husband alive. However, Max (Paul Bettany – A Beautiful Mind, Wimbledon), who serves as the story’s moral compass, objects to this. And when Will does pass, he is ready to shut the experiment down and believes Evelyn will want to do the same. But just as they prepare to shut down the operation, he appears inside the computer. It’s his voice. It’s his image. He knows all that’s going on. But he instantly requests more power. It makes Max suspicious (primarily because of how quickly Will starts asking for crucial, highly-sensitive information that he had never mentioned when he was alive). Still, Evelyn is overwhelmed with joy and, understandably, blind to anything else. But is the man claiming to be Will actually Will, or is it someone/something else?

Will wants to continue his organization’s original mission and can now do so more easily with his increased abilities. Soon they are doing precisely what they had set out to do. He’s curing humans who have been sick. But there are groups out there who believe that the only way that this does not end in disaster is if PINN shuts down entirely. This involves uploading a virus that will destroy everything associated with the supercomputer. But Evelyn knows this will ruin Will, and he will be gone to her forever. So there is resistance from here. In addition, there is resistance from others who are uncertain what to think, including Max, research facility partner Joseph (Morgan Freeman – Million Dollar Baby, The Shawshank Redemption), and FBI agent Buchanan (Cillian Murphy – The Dark Knight, Inception).

The acting was excellent, and the character development was outstanding. I know there has been some talk on Depp losing it and doing either too many Jack Sparrow character movies or Tim Burton movies where he plays eccentric characters loaded up on makeup. Most will say this was a miss for him in terms of a role outside of what he has been doing lately, but I don’t think he is. He did a great job here. He didn’t carry this movie because he didn’t need to. If you can deal with a slower pace and suspend reality, this is undoubtedly one of the more interesting and better science fiction movies of recent years. I am going against what most of the critics think and recommending it. Is it a Top 10 of the Year? No. It’s probably not even Top 20, but it’s still a film I enjoyed.

Plot 8/10
Character Development 10/10 (outstanding development/changes of character)
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 9/10 (Depp, Hall, Bettany, Freeman, and Murphy were all great)
Screenplay 7.5/10 (yeah, it could have been a bit quicker, and it didn’t need to be quite so confusing at times)
Directing 8/10 (the first-time director I thought was successful…though, in the hands of slightly more experienced, this movie had the potential to be more of a pleaser)
Cinematography 8.5/10 (wait until you see Brightwood…also there will be parts of this movie that remind you of Terminator 2, which, on a side note, was a movie that was just so far ahead of its time)
Sound 7.5/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10 (I liked Paul Bettany’s quick introduction at the beginning, and while this movie was slow, I never felt that it dragged)
Universal Relevance 8/10
83.5%

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• I, Robot
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