By Joseph Rossi
What the hell happened to Johnny Depp? Seriously, man. Call up Tim Burton and make Ed Wood 2 or something and set it up right away. After watching you look bored in last years The Lone Ranger I had hoped your new movie Transcendence would make for an interesting Johnny Depp movie. I was wrong.
Between the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing and now, Johnny Depp has made two great movies, Finding Neverland and Sweeny Todd. That’s it. Everything else is good to just plain bad. But at least he didn’t look complacent. The movies might have crumbled but Depp was always to be counted on to serve up a little magic. But with this new film, Transcendence, Depp seems to be phoning it in. Can’t wait to see the house that this heap helped him buy.
The film is pure science fiction; aka, the kind that has already been done before a million times. Humans underestimate technology is the theme and we can trace that one all the way back to Mary Shelly and her monster. Will Caster (Depp) is a computer genius who’s on the verge of a breakthrough in the area of advanced artificial intelligence but is sidelined when he gets shot by a group of radicals who believe that his advances will destroy humankind. Before he dies, Caster uploads his memory into his supercomputer with the aid of his wife and colleague played by Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany. This is where the real problem begins and continues. As an audience we can see that Caster’s online persona will become power mad from the beginning. It’s a classic movie cliché. Without it, there would be no movie. There are no surprises. I sat there, rolling my eyes every time Caster’s wife cries, believing that there is still good in him. When she realizes that there is no turning back, the movie has already fallen into the tragic been there, done that mode.
The film is the debut of ace cinematographer Wally Pfister. The man knows how to shoot a movie like the big boys. The problem lies in the premise. Hoping this director can find a better script to match his talent.
